Cepton Technology’s Newest Highspeed Lidar Sensor Can Spot a Tow Hitch on a Vehicle Traveling 50 Miles per Hour

June 7, 2019

William Kucinski

Cepton Technologies, Inc. , a San Jose, California-based 3D lidar developer, has added a line scanning lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors to its SORA line-up for autonomous vehicles. The SORA-P60  uses Cepton’s Micro-Motion Technology (MMT) to achieve an industry leading 1,200 scan lines per second, to provide accurate 3D scans and to enable automated classification of objects and volumetric scanning. The sensor is currently installed at an undisclosed highway tolling facility in the United States.

When combined with Cepton’s edge-computing hardware, SORA-Edge, the new SORA-P60 lidar sensor becomes a powerful, mobile object classification and volumetric measurement device which can send vehicle and environment data over Ethernet, Wi-Fi or 4G LTE to a central processing server. This technology opens up the possibility of scanning fast moving objects, both for automotive and aerospace applications.

Active electro-optical sensors, or lidar technology, is a fast-moving business area for self-driving car and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) markets, enabling adaptive drive assistance systems (ADAS) for automatic driving and vehicle protection systems.

There are still many unsettled areas regarding sensor design and automated driving. One major concern is the standardization of tests and procedures for verifying, simulating, and calibrating these automated driving sensors. This topic and more are covered in detail in SAE International’s SAE EDGE™ Research Report: Unsettled Topics Concerning Sensors for Automated Road Vehicles.

William Kucinski  is content editor at SAE International, Aerospace Products Group in Warrendale, Pa. Previously, he worked as a writer at the NASA Safety Center in Cleveland, Ohio and was responsible for writing the agency’s System Failure Case Studies. His interests include literally anything that has to do with space, past and present military aircraft, and propulsion technology.

Contact him regarding any article or collaboration ideas by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..