Boston-based Teradar recently came out of stealth mode and announced the world’s first commercial terahertz vision sensor. The company secured $150 million in Series B funding led by VXI Capital in partnership with IBEX Investors, Capricorn Investment Group, The Engine Ventures and Lockheed Martin Ventures to develop technology that provides 20 times the resolution of current automotive radar.
Teradar was founded five years ago with the goal of creating an entirely new category of sensors. “The whole premise from day one was how do you create a whole new class of sensors that don’t get bogged down by the fundamental tradeoffs of radar and LiDAR,” Teradar CEO and co-founder Matt Carey said in an interview with FreightWaves.
This innovation addresses fundamental limitations in current car perception systems. “LiDAR is incredibly accurate, but it’s expensive and it falls apart in bad weather – fog, rain, snow, snow. Radar is cheap, it sees far in any weather, but the resolution is terrible,” Carey added.
The terahertz band represents what the company calls the “Goldilocks frequency” — offering wavelengths long enough to penetrate adverse weather conditions like radar while being short enough to provide very high angular resolution.
“We went into the last untapped practical band — the terahertz band — and turned it into a sensor,” Carey said. “The wavelength is long enough to bend around raindrops and snowflakes like radar, short enough to give you crazy angular resolution.”
This technology works continuously in adverse weather conditions and maintains image quality through fog, rain and snow. “I can fill this whole scene with thick fog, heavy rain or snow, and our image will be exactly the same. Zero degradation. It’s not an incremental improvement. It’s a new category,” Carey said.
During the interview, Carey shared a technical demonstration that compared the Teradar’s capabilities to the Continental ARS540 radar, an advanced sensor used in Mercedes S-Class cars and heavy-duty trucks. The comparison showed that Teradar produced approximately 20 times more data points than radar, with enough detail to detect human limb movements and detailed environmental features.
For automotive applications, Teradar technology specifically improves Level 3 automation (hands-on, eyes-free driving). “Where we move the needle is true L3 at mass market prices,” Carey said. This architecture allows performance tuning for specific vehicle segments: trucks get long-range versions that reach 350-400 meters, while passenger cars may use versions optimized for 200-250 meters with denser clouds for urban driving scenarios.
The company has prioritized supply chain flexibility with a manufacturing strategy focused on US and EU foundries. “China has no resources for critical things, and we have complete emergency plans for Taiwan,” Kerry said. Auto OEMs need supply chain flexibility; We were built this way from the beginning.
Looking ahead, Teradar plans to showcase its production-targeted silicon (Sample B) at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The company expects to deliver the sensors to customers in 2027, and to have vehicles using the technology on the road by 2028.
Teradar’s potential market position is flexible, with some OEMs indicating they may replace radar with Teradar while retaining LiDAR, others planning the opposite approach, and a “growing camp” considering a simple perception suite of cameras and Teradar alone.
“Our goal is to be good enough to replace both,” Carey said. “We don’t dictate the architecture, we just give them a good sense to take whatever direction makes sense for their brand and their market.”
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