DETROIT, July 20 (Reuters) – Former Ford Motor Co chief of automotive operations Joe Hinrichs joins the board of Wavesense, Inc, a Massachusetts startup developing ground penetrating radar to help guide vehicles during autonomous driving.
Hinrichs retired from Ford in February in an administrative restructuring.
Wavesense said it was also adding former General Motors Co chief financial officer Chuck Stevens and former Continental AG chief technical officer Kurt Lehmann to an advisory board.
Wavesense CEO Tarik Bolat said the company was working with automakers and large suppliers to market its technology, and that it had been three to four years since production started.
“We will have some fundraising announcements,” said Bolat.
Wavesense is testing ground penetrating radar location technology with automakers, Hinrichs said. The company maps underground features, then compares penetration radar images to determine the location of a vehicle. The company is also working on a system that can help a vehicle navigate a parking structure in autonomous driving mode.
Hinrichs said the technology promises to be a “significantly lower cost solution” than LIDAR, which uses lasers to measure and locate the characteristics of the road around a car.
(Report by Joe White; Richard Chang Edition)
