Industrial sensor giant Teledyne will acquire FLIR, an Oregon-based company that makes thermal imaging and night vision technology, the companies announced on Monday. The deal is worth $ 8 billion in a combination of cash and stocks.
“At the heart of our companies are proprietary sensor technologies. Our business models are also similar: each of us provides sensors, cameras and sensor systems to our customers, ”said Teledyne President Robert Mehrabian in a statement. The company’s sensors are “exclusively complementary, with minimal overlap,” he added, which can be important when regulators decide whether to approve the acquisition.
Oregon-based FLIR produces thermal imaging and night vision technology for the military sector and for consumer and industrial applications – if you’ve seen infrared images, there’s a good chance they were captured with a FLIR camera. FLIR also has about $ 60 million in contracts with the Army for its Black Hornet drone, and its Hadron thermal camera is used in other Army-approved drones. FLIR also provides thermal imaging cameras for Zoox’s autonomous robot taxi, which helps vehicles to “see better” people and driving conditions, particularly important in urban areas.
Teledyne may also have technology useful for autonomous vehicles: in addition to making thermal sensors for industrial and defense customers, including NASA, it is one of the companies that builds the LIDAR (light detection and range) sensors that you can see on a car. -driving car. His LIDAR was also used in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission last October, helping to map the surface of asteroid Bennu so it could collect samples to bring back to Earth. Teledyne should not be confused with Velodyne, whose LIDAR appeared in some of the first autonomous driving prototypes and the first Google cars, among others.
The acquisition is expected to close in the middle of the year, the companies said, pending regulatory approval.