World’s first 3D ultrasonic safety sensor is cheaper than LiDAR
8 May 2025 
A Norwegian start-up has announced the world’s first safe 3D ultrasonic depth sensor, designed to boost safety in spaces shared by humans and robots. Oslo-based Sonair claims that its Adar sensor offers a simpler, cheaper alternative to LiDAR sensors, with a wider field of view, and will transform robot safety zones from 2D to 3D.
“Safety just got a lot simpler – and better adapted to detect people,” says the company’s CEO, Knut Sandven. “Adar enables 3D 360-degree obstacle detection around autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) at a significantly lower cost than the sensor packages used today, enabling AMR manufacturers to build safe and affordable autonomous robots.
“Adar is an advanced plug-and-play sensing technology ensuring compliance with safety standards,” he adds. “With its small form factor, and low power and compute consumption, it is easy to integrate as part of a combined sensor package. It takes the ‘uh oh’ out of human robot coexistence, and replaces it with an ‘all clear’.”
Typical 2D LiDAR safety scanners used on AMRs only see a person’s legs in one horizontal plane. By contrast, Sonair’s patented Adar (acoustic detection and ranging) technology detects people and objects in 3D. A single Adar sensor provides a full 180 x 180 degree field-of-view, and a 5m range.
The technology at the heart of Adar has been developed at Norway’s MiNaLab sensor and nanotechnology research centre over more than 20 years. The imaging method is called “beamforming” – it’s the backbone of processing for sonar and radar systems, as well as for medical ultrasound imaging. Sonair says it is now ready for ultrasound in-air applications.
Adar gives autonomous robots omnidirectional depth perception, allowing them to “hear” their surroundings in real-time 3D, using airborne soundwaves to interpret spatial information. It has been designed to comply with ISO13849:2023, performance level d/SIL2.
The sensor creates a virtual safety shield with a range of 5m, allowing people and robots to share the space safely. It combines wavelength-matched transducers with efficient signal processing for beamforming, and algorithms for object recognition.
Adar is on track to achieve safety certification by the end of 2025. This will be an industry first for 3D ultrasonic sensing in air.
More than 20 global companies, including AMR manufacturers, industrial conglomerates, automotive technology suppliers, and vendors in the health and cleaning industries, have validated the sensor’s effectiveness in an early access programme that was launched in 2024.
The Adar sensors are due to start shipping in July 2025. The first commercial orders have already been placed, including one from Japan’s Fuji Corporation, which plans to use the sensor in an upcoming line of AMRs, and another from a Swiss manufacturer of autonomous robots for the cleaning industry.
“Sonair combines rapid development capabilities with a flexible mindset,” says Koji Kawaguchi, general manager of Fuji’s Innovation Promotion Department. “Thanks to their cooperation, through comprehensive testing we were able to confirm the high suitability of their sensors for autonomous mobile robots.”
Sonair was founded in 2022 by a team of serial entrepreneurs led by Knut Sandven, former CEO of GasSecure. It was spun out from Norway’s Sintef research organisation to exploit advances in ultrasonics and microelectromechanical systems (Mems).
Sonair will be demonstrating the Adar technology at next week’s Automate exhibition in Detroit in the US.
Sonair: LinkedIn
