Shift Magazine - April 2020 - 14

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
Lunewave brings a
decades-old antenna
technology into the
world of AVs
BY PETE BIGELOW

H

ao Xin had prodded his businessminded brother for years. The
University of Arizona professor
of computer and electrical engineering
and physics wanted to start a business
based on nearly a decade of his research
into a niche radar technology that's been
around for nearly 80 years.
Over a few glasses of wine one night,
the idea finally took hold.
The business consultant, who had a
5-year-old son and pregnant wife, quit
his job and sold the family's home. Along
with his older brother, he co-founded
Lunewave, a company now positioned
to alter the automotive industry's sensor
landscape.
Traditional radar units have a limited
field of view. Depending on their purpose

in driver-assist systems or autonomous
vehicles, a half-dozen or more may be
needed to cover a desired field of view.
Lunewave says its products can have as
much as a 360-degree field of view with
a single unit. At the same time, they can
detect objects at a range of 380 yards,
about double the distance of most automotive radar today.
"We are approaching lidar capability
with radar technology," John Xin said.
The underlying technology is not all
that new. In the 1940s, German scientist Rudolf Lüneburg pioneered the

sphere-shaped antennas, and they've
been used in fighter jets, among other
applications, for a long time. But nobody
could manufacture one small enough for
automotive applications.
A little bigger than a golf ball,
Lunewave's antenna has 6,500 distinct
chambers that are crucial to its function.
With the advent of 3D printing, Hao Xin
learned to manufacture it at a smaller
scale over the course of nearly a decade
of research.
In addition to automotive, the Xins say
a slightly different design of their antenna
could have important implications for
5G infrastructure stations. But much of
Lunewave's funding comes with auto
applications in mind. Urban-x, a business
accelerator started by U.K. auto brand
Mini, provided pre-seed funding, and
BMW i Ventures and Baidu Ventures participated in Lunewave's seed round.
Despite much attention on other sensors that may enable the self-driving
future, these investors are convinced
there's a lot of room left for innovation in
the one that's been around the longest. n

HEAVY-DUTY TRUCK TECH
Meritor's modular
ePowertrain carries plugand-play convenience
BY SEBASTIAN BLANCO

F

ew companies have as long a history
with axles as Meritor.
The company's story stretches
back to 1909, when Timken-Detroit Axle
was founded in Detroit. Mergers, name
changes and other corporate adjustments

14

shift * april 2020

over the last century resulted in Meritor
Automotive, which was spun off Rockwell
International in 1997 to focus on commercial vehicles and industrial business
products.
This company became known as Meritor
in 2011 and, in 2018, launched a technology
brand called Blue Horizon, which is focused
on electrification, increased efficiency and
connectivity in large vehicles.
It's the Blue Horizon name that Meritor
has applied to its modular medium- and
heavy-duty ePowertrain system for Class

4-8 commercial vehicles.
The modular format allows Meritor's customers to choose different wheel ends,
brakes, transmissions and differential gearing for their trucks.
On top of that, the "e" in ePowertrain
brings electric power, and Meritor's system
uses electric motors that can offer 268 hp
per drive axle, all with a system that Meritor
promises will be plug-and-play, since it
was designed to use existing suspension
mounting points and common parts.
Meritor has been working on zero-
Shift Magazine - April 2020

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