Foresight's Project With Automotive Giant ZF North America Focuses On Improvement Of ADAS Safety Applications

Foresight Autonomous Holdings Ltd. FRSX, a leading player in automotive vision systems, is seemingly on the rise. For evidence, consider the significant partnerships announced with businesses in Israel, China, Europe and Japan.

But perhaps none of those collaborations are as significant as the agreement Foresight won to work on a joint proof of concept (POC) project with ZF North America Inc., a global technology giant that supplies autonomous systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology.

Foresight earned the right to collaborate on the project by winning the ZF Pitch Event hosted by ZF North America at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in January in Las Vegas. The Pitch Event, which focused on automotive electronics and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) applications, attracted several competitors, who presented their technology in hopes of earning the project. Since its victory, Foresight has received funding from ZF and the parties have initiated work.

During the early years of the autonomous driving market there perhaps often was more hype than reality, with competitors in the space ranging from stand-alone car manufacturers to major technology companies like Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL efforts with Waymo. 

But recent years have seen the market evolve and produce more sophisticated vehicles and driving systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and heavy equipment. ADAS applications might be especially important because, among other things, they help detect and avoid pedestrians, warn of lane departures, recognize traffic signs, trigger emergency braking, and help with blind-spot detection.

To make those vehicles a reality, technology that has the ability to detect nearly any object on any road, day or night, clear skies or heavy weather arguably must be developed. That’s where Foresight, founded in 2015, looks to help. 

The technology company has reported developing in-line-of-sight vision systems that provide solutions for such diverse markets as automotive, defense, autonomous vehicles and heavy industrial equipment.

Foresight’s technology is also seemingly changing preconceived notions about stereo technology with its 3D stereo perception software that improves obstacle detection. The company’s technology and software also support the ability to place cameras at different locations on the vehicle, seeing smaller objects from far away with high-detection accuracy.

In addition, Foresight’s proprietary Mono2Stereo™ software-based solution uses the overlapping views of existing cameras with different fields of view to create a three-dimensional stereo-vision system to improve object detection.

ZF Could Prove A Powerful Partner

"We are always looking for the next innovative solution, seeking to enhance vehicle safety and driver comfort and convenience," said Marc Bolitho, senior vice president in ZF’s Engineering for the Electronics and ADAS Division. "Foresight’s capabilities offer a potential valuable solution that could be readily deployed without requiring additional hardware and design changes. The new stereo solution provides a rich perception based on enhanced 3D depth mapping, accurate distance measurement and object detection. Foresight’s proprietary Mono2Stereo software-based solution, which is evaluated in this project, uses existing mono cameras to create a 3D perception stereo vision solution to improve the overall probability of detection of existing ADAS systems.”

Foresight CEO Haim Siboni said the company is honored to have been selected for the joint POC project, which will use its innovative solution for automotive electronics and ADAS applications. 

“We believe that conducting a POC project with one of the world’s top Tier One automotive suppliers once again validates the added value of our technology for enhancing existing ADAS systems,” Siboni said.

The partnership with ZF North America may prove to be significant. The global technology giant supplies systems to automobile manufacturers like Toyota Motor Corp. TM for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology.

ZF technology allows vehicles to, in the company’s words, "see, think and act."  The company operates 188 production locations in 31 countries and employs more than 155,000 worldwide. In the fiscal year 2021, the company reported sales of more than $40 billion.

Possibly adding to its momentum, Foresight previously announced the successful completion of POC projects with car manufacturers in Europe and China and recently announced a new POC project with global Tier One automotive supplier Hitachi Astemo. 

Learn more about Foresight here.

Foresight Autonomous Holdings develops technology that supports advanced driver-assistance systems applications that detect and avoid obstacles. 

Featured Photo Courtesy of Foresight

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