Lidar has been a way for cars to perceive objects in the medium range. In the long range, the radar performs better, and in the closer range, the ultrasound and other methods are more compact. But within a few feet to a few hundred feet, lidar is very useful. However, even the most compact lidar solutions today are about the size of a hand, and lidar solutions used in production cars are even larger.
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According to foreign media reports, lidar is an important way for robots and self-driving cars to perceive the world around them, but lasers and sensors usually occupy a lot of space, and startup Voyant Photonics has created a lidar that can be placed on a pin system.
Lidar has been a way for cars to perceive objects in the medium range. In the long range, the radar performs better, and in the closer range, the ultrasound and other methods are more compact. But within a few feet to a few hundred feet, lidar is very useful. However, even the most compact lidar solutions today are about the size of a hand, and lidar solutions used in production cars are even larger. If there is a very small lidar component, it can be hidden in the corner of the car or even inside the car, and it can provide data about the position inside and around the car without changing the existing vehicle lines and design, and the power consumption will be very high. low.
In essence, the initial concept of lidar is to let a single laser beam scan a scene multiple times in a second, and then carefully measure the reflected laser light to track the distance of the object. But mechanically controlled lasers are bulky, slow, and work poorly, so emerging companies are experimenting with other technologies, such as using a flash lidar to illuminate the entire scene at once, or using complex electronic surfaces ( Metamaterial) to control the beam. Now, there is another way is silicon optoelectronic technology (essentially manipulating light on a chip for multiple purposes), and Voyant pioneered a technology that uses silicon optoelectronics for lidar.
In the past, some people have tried to make a silicon optoelectronic chip emit a coherent laser-like beam from the surface of an optical waveguide (a component used to guide light or emit light). Will be restricted.