TriEye founders, left to right: Chief Technology Officer Uriel Levy, Chief Executive Officer Avi-Bakal and R&D Vice President Omer Kapach. Photo: David Garb.

An Israeli company has partnered with German luxury automobile manufacturer Porsche to help drivers see more clearly, regardless of the weather or time of day. 

TriEye’s Short-Wave Infra-Red (SWIR) technology is said to improve visibility in less-than-ideal driving situations, such as stormy conditions or nighttime. The technology works with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AV), with a camera providing image data that standard cameras cannot see.

Porsche had previously announced in August that it would invest in the product, but now will work with TriEye to develop it and improve its ADAS and AV technology in the process.

The collaboration announced earlier this month was “a significant vote of confidence in our technology,” TriEye Marketing Manager Nitzan Yosef Presburger told The Algemeiner.

TriEye’s announcement of the partnership came just ahead of the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, one of the biggest international technology conferences in the world, where it was also a big winner. TriEye took home two innovation awards, one in the “Embedded Technologies” category, and another in “Vehicle Intelligence and Transportation,” which is based on its innovative engineering, aesthetic and design.

Its high-definition SWIR camera is smaller in size, with higher resolution and significantly lower costs than existing technologies, the company says. It claims the technology works and can be mass-produced.

According to Presburger, TriEye’s competitors are mainly selling to the defense and aerospace industries. TriEye is revolutionizing the SWIR cameras market by reducing the price, thus making it available for mass-market applications.

“This is a considerable milestone and we look forward to making TriEye’s cutting-edge solution accessible to all car owners, from low-budget to premium vehicles” said Presburger.

TriEye was founded in 2017 by CEO Avi Bakal, CTO Uriel Levy and R&D Vice President Omer Kapach to save lives and reduce the risk of accidents in all weather and lighting conditions. The technology is based on a decade of advanced nanophotonics research led by Proffesor Uriel Levy, TriEye’s CTO and cofounder, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The biggest challenge, Presburger told The Algemeiner, was figuring out how to take a decade of in-depth research and turn it into a technical breakthrough that could be mass produced. Now, he asserted, the product is 1,000 times cheaper than those of its competitors. 

“Our collaboration with Porsche has been exceptional from day one and we look forward to growing this potential,” said CEO Bakal.