Alphabet's Waymo Introduces New Hardware With Sensors Better Armed Against Winters

Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL autonomous driving tech unit Waymo introduced its sixth-generation hardware on Monday to reduce costs while simultaneously delivering more performance, including in winter.

What Happened: Waymo’s sixth-generation system builds on its predecessor and has 13 cameras, four lidar sensors, six radars, and an array of external audio receivers (EARs) to enhance the performance of its sensor suite.

“It provides the Waymo Driver with overlapping fields of view, all around the vehicle, up to 500 meters away, day and night, and in a range of weather conditions,” Waymo said in a blog post.

The new sensor suite was improved based on the knowledge accumulated from the rides completed by the company to date and will allow the vehicles to navigate an even larger set of road conditions, the company said. The company has implemented preventive measures for each sensor to maintain a clear view of its surroundings even under adverse weather conditions such as extreme winters, among other improvements, it said.

Why It Matters: Waymo said that it has rigorously tested and validated the new hardware through both real-world driving and simulations.

“Now with six generations of hardware manufactured and integrated into thousands of vehicles, we have significant experience developing and operating fully autonomous technology at scale,” Waymo Vice President of Engineering Satish Jeyachandran said.

Last month, Alphabet committed to a new multiyear investment of $5 billion into Waymo to help the company "continue to build the world's leading autonomous driving technology company."

Waymo is delivering well over 50,000 paid trips per week to customers, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai then said.

However, the deployment of autonomous vehicles is not without concerns. In June, Waymo recalled 672 of its self-driving vehicles after one of its robotaxis struck a wooden utility pole in Phoenix.

Last week, it was reported that several Waymo vehicles caused disturbance to residents after honking at each other at a San Francisco parking lot.

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