3 ms·

So it's a LIDAR + galvanometer scanner in a box? This is nothing particularly novel in itself, except they seem to have solved the scanning-speed problem. If yo

by joshvm 9y ago

So it's a LIDAR + galvanometer scanner in a box? This is nothing particularly novel in itself, except they seem to have solved the scanning-speed problem. If you look at the videos of the scan, you can see that rather than the ring-like scans you'd get from a Velodyne system, you get a kind of snake-path. They're scanning (extremely quickly, by the looks of it) with a mirror and doing a kind of raster pattern. From a skim of their patent it's a multiplexed system - http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2017/0131388.html http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2017/0131388.html Seems like they're using a galvo to scan the LIDAR and they're beamsplitting the laser to get multiple returns.

indolering 9y ago
> except they seem to have solved the scanning-speed problem By way of a GaN chip, which is the standard solution for anything requiring super high clock speeds. Considering another company is pitching a $50 solid-state LIDAR for autonomous vehicles, I don't think this qualifies as a breakthrough[0]. It's just the market pushing prices down. [1]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/osrams-laser-chip-for-lidar-promises-supershort-pulses-in-a-smaller-package http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sens...
- joshvm 9y ago
  I was thinking more of the mirrors. I've used galvo systems at work before, and the off the shelf ones couldn't come close to the sorts of speeds they're showing off. Especially not in a raster pattern. 3D LIDAR using galvos has been done before for space applications (one was used on the space shuttle, or at least a ground-based model), they used a lissajous scanning pattern which is much kinder on the motors because you can do continuous movements rather than making the mirror do a rapid turn at the end of each row. It's called TriDAR: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006SPIE.6220E...7R http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006SPIE.6220E...7R

by joshvm 9y ago

indolering 9y ago

> except they seem to have solved the scanning-speed problem By way of a GaN chip, which is the standard solution for anything requiring super high clock speeds. Considering another company is pitching a $50 solid-state LIDAR for autonomous vehicles, I don't think this qualifies as a breakthrough[0]. It's just the market pushing prices down. [1]: http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sensors/osrams-laser-chip-for-lidar-promises-supershort-pulses-in-a-smaller-package http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/sens...

joshvm 9y ago
I was thinking more of the mirrors. I've used galvo systems at work before, and the off the shelf ones couldn't come close to the sorts of speeds they're showing off. Especially not in a raster pattern. 3D LIDAR using galvos has been done before for space applications (one was used on the space shuttle, or at least a ground-based model), they used a lissajous scanning pattern which is much kinder on the motors because you can do continuous movements rather than making the mirror do a rapid turn at the end of each row. It's called TriDAR: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006SPIE.6220E...7R http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006SPIE.6220E...7R