Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS), a small company developing hyper-resolution radar technology for autonomous vehicles and other applications, said on Thursday it has received a strategic investment from Raytheon Technologies
[RTX] to help further develop the technology for greater resolution and range for mobility and defense uses.
The value of the Series B investment by Raytheon’s venture capital arm, RTX Ventures, wasn’t disclosed.
“We’re powering a new class of radar with groundbreaking performance advantages that are 10 times greater than possible with existing radar technologies,” Behrooz Rezvani, founder and CEO of NPS, said in a statement. “NPS is poised to disrupt the $28 billion radar market. Leveraging our recent breakthroughs in algorithms based on a new mathematical framework, our AtomicSense radar platform dramatically transforms how sensor data is processed and understood, enabling a revolution in radar performance.”
The company says on its website that the higher resolution and greater precision of its algorithm allows it to detect more targets than competing algorithms. It also says its technology requires 50 times less energy than current technologies and is “close to the information-theoretic limits of what is mathematically possible.”
NPS says its AtomicSense technology outperforms human vision, assisting operators in challenging weather and road environments and adding a key component for autonomous driving.
NPS has demonstrated the performance of its radar technology to customers in the transportation and defense markets.
“We invest in companies working on breakthrough innovation that can transform aerospace and defense,” Dan Ateya, president and managing director of RTX Ventures, said in a statement. “NPS’ advances in radar technology will open the door for a great range of radar applications such as the defense of our airspace.”
NPS has 30 employees and is based in the Silicon Valley area of California. NPS is a portfolio company of several venture capital firms including Cota Capital, DIVC, Blue Lagoon Capital and Marbruck Ventures.