Filling vital gaps in how driverless cars 'see'

Palo Alto, California

SOROUSH Salehian raised both arms and spun in circles as if celebrating a touchdown.

Across the room, perched on a tripod, a small black device monitored this little dance and streamed it to a nearby laptop. Mr Salehian appeared as a collection of tiny coloured dots, some red, some blue, some green. Each dot showed the precise distance to a particular point on his body, while the colours showed the speed of his movements. As his right arm spun forward, it turned blue. His left arm, spinning away, turned red.

"See how the arms are different?" said his business partner, Mina Rezk, pointing at the laptop. "It's measuring different velocities."

Mr Salehian and Mr Rezk are the founders of a Silicon Valley startup called Aeva, and their small black device is designed for self-driving cars. The veterans of Apple's secretive Special Projects Group aim to give these autonomous vehicles a more complete, detailed and reliable view of the world around them - something that's essent…