Oct 27 (Reuters) - German auto supplier Continental AG on Tuesday agreed to acquire a minority stake in California lidar startup AEye to use the relatively young technology in autonomous passenger and commercial vehicles.

Lidar technology uses light-based sensors to generate a three-dimensional view of the road.

Continental said both companies are jointly developing a "high-performance long-range" lidar sensor based on AEye's patents that will complement the auto supplier's existing short-range lidar technology scheduled for series production later this year.

"This puts us in a strong position to cover the full vehicle environment with state-of-the-art lidar sensor technology and to facilitate automated driving at SAE levels 3 or higher in both passenger and commercial vehicle applications," said Frank Petznick, head of Continental's advanced driver assistance systems business unit. (Reporting by Shreyasee Raj in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)