ZF has acquired a 40% stake in Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH. The Hamburg-based company, which was founded in 2009, is a market leader in lidar technology and in developing environmental recognition software with a particular focus on applications for autonomous driving. Ibeo's customers include several major global vehicle manufacturers.

"Lidar gives us access to a core technology for environmental and object recognition," claims Dr. Stefan Sommer, ZF's chief executive officer, while explaining ZF's investment in Ibeo. "Lidar expands our current sensor portfolio of radar and camera technologies, and moreover, Ibeo's fusion of these three sensor technologies provides outstanding results in environmental awareness and forms the basis for autonomous driving."

Lidar, an acronym for ‘light detection and ranging', denotes a procedure in which a light pulse is emitted to determine a distance based on runtime and speed of light. Lidar is an optical method for measuring distance and speed that is very similar to radar, except that laser pulses are used instead of radio waves.

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