Electric car manufacturer Tesla has been granted new patents that enable LiDAR-quality 3D sensing using only camera data. These patents, numbered US20250282344 and US20250285372A1, will deliver surgical-level precision while using 90 percent less processing power than existing systems. These advancements pave the way for Tesla to create high-resolution maps of its surroundings in both vehicles and robots without the need for expensive LiDAR systems.

Tesla Takes 3D Sensing Technology to the Top

Tesla’s first patent offers a solution to the sensitive depth perception problem experienced by vehicles, especially in tight maneuvering areas like parking lots. The system processes images from eight cameras and transforms them into 3D distance maps called marked distance areas.

Thanks to this method, Tesla vehicles can distinguish even small details such as curbs or parking lines, achieving this with three times the precision of the current system.

The patent recognizes not only objects but also parking lot lines, disabled parking symbols, and fire lanes at a 3D pixel level. This allows the vehicle to make accurate parking decisions even with missing or deleted lines. The system provides the driver with options by assigning a suitability score to the parking spaces it detects.

The second patent makes the same infrastructure much more efficient. With traditional methods, the processing load increases exponentially as resolution increases. However, Tesla’s trilinear interpolation method achieves infinite internal point resolution by calculating using only eight points.

This way, the system saves 90% of processing power while maintaining centimeter, or even millimeter, precision. These new technologies are designed not only for Tesla’s cars but also for the Optimus humanoid robot. The AI ​​architecture automatically adapts to different camera arrays, allowing for the transfer of experience learned in one area to the next.

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