FEATURE AUTOMOTIVE LIDAR
Lidar is one of the different sensing regimes that can feed into artificial intelligence systems to enable improved safety systems and autonomous driving
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companies are working on lidar, it will soon become standard. He added that safety regulations will also ultimately require lidar to supplement front cameras in cars. Valeo’s first- and second-generation Scala
lidars are scanners exploiting rotating mirrors, with four and 16 905nm laser sources respectively, rather than static flash systems. ‘Flash lidar only has 16 or so different spots, which is not enough, and flash lidars operate with limited power to avoid damaging eyes,’ Devauchelle said. By contrast, rotating mirrors offer large fields of view and good angular resolution, which has been boosted even further by increasing the number of laser sources. Valeo initially licenced its lidar technology from German firm Ibeo, which sold products for niche, low-volume applications. ‘We have completely redesigned the product to be an automotive-grade, as a safety device with a competitive cost far below €1,000,’ Devauchelle stressed. Yet Valeo is now developing solid-state flash lidar technology for a third generation product. Devauchelle noted that the firm’s first and second generation products used established technology intentionally, to reduce the commercialisation challenge. ‘A
“Two major points are important for automotive customers: reliability and low cost”
16 Electro Optics Augut/September 2019
rotating mirror with precision mechanics was available,’ he said. ‘Selecting the right diodes for imaging, the right receivers, the right data processing, was already quite challenging. The result is that, for the time being, we are the only one that has been qualified for automotive applications. We have produced 100,000 parts so far. We’re still not sure that solid state will replace the rotating mirror quickly, that it will be more
economical or easier, but we’ll see.’ Scott Barrie, sales engineer at Hamamatsu Photonics UK, is familiar with the kind of concerns Devauchelle raised. ‘Two major points are important for automotive customers: reliability and low cost,’ he said. Japan-headquartered Hamamatsu Photonics develops and manufactures all constituent parts of lidar systems in-house. ‘Full control over the
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The Valeo Scala is an automotive-qualified lidar product @electrooptics |
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