Luminar, a Silicon Valley start-up, is set to manufacture its laser-based sensor for self-driving cars – which is noted to improve vehicle safety.

Founded in 2012 by two photonics experts, Luminar has kept a low profile in the autonomous vehicles industry. The company will be beefing up manufacturing facility in Orlando, Florida, for its first run of 10,000 Lidar sensors later this year, Chief Executive Austin Russell told Reuters.

Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, shoots out light pulses that are reflected off objects, allowing self-driving cars to “see” their environment. This technology has been widely adopted by companies in the self driving industry including Google’s Waymo and Uber. Many regard it as a crucial component, along with other sensors such as cameras and radars.

Lidar has been the subject of an ongoing trade secrets lawsuit, where Waymo alleges that a former employee stole intellectual property about its Lidar system that was later copied by Uber.

Reuters report wrote, “Russell said Lidars for self-driving cars on the market were developed from hardware that existed before autonomous cars. Their limitations in range and resolution make them unfit for the safe rollout of self-driving cars, he noted.

“Luminar addresses those shortfalls by using a 1550 nanometer wavelength that provides 50 times greater resolution and 10 times the range of the best rival Lidars, Russell said.

“That means a car can “see” a black object with reflectivity of 10 percent clearly from 200 meters away, he said. By contrast, the so-called “Puck” Lidar from Velodyne, a company that makes most of the Lidar used in self-driving prototypes today, has a range of 100 meters.”

According to Luminar, four unnamed automakers and technology firms are testing their products on prototype driverless cars.