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Lidar is almost always discussed in relation to self-driving vehicles. What are some other applications that stand to benefit significantly from a price reduct

by gibolt 6y ago

Lidar is almost always discussed in relation to self-driving vehicles. What are some other applications that stand to benefit significantly from a price reduction? Submersibles come to mind as a cost-prohibitive tech where this could help somewhat.

duxup 6y ago
Yeah I'm wondering what the usage is here beyond self driving vehicles as well. Feels like there are a lot of sky high prices lidar companies and yet the failing of self driving cars so far isn't lidar....
qppo 6y ago
Drones?
- nradov 6y ago
  Yes a lightweight, low-power lidar would be useful for collision avoidance when flying near terrain.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Many Polish government leaders were killed in 2010 in a crash in Russia when their pilots attempted to land in bad weather using a radar altimeter over rough terrain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_air_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_air_disaster (In Eastern Europe, pilots are pressured to continue VIP flights despite risks. So the PIC was likely told, "Fly and land, or be fired/arrested on the spot." There were "non-crew" reported in the cockpit, likely demanding a landing at the intended airport instead of an alternate. Some US regional airlines have also been caught firing pilots when maintenance problems are reported, but US civilian pilots (and dispatchers) are the final authority, and thankfully regional airlines are mostly gone since the FAA 1,500 hour rule.) So there are aviation use-cases for 3d radar/lidar navigation. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.
  - abakker 6y ago
    Absolutely, many drones do use Lidar. But, there probably aren't a million drones with high res Lidar in the world.
georgeburdell 6y ago
Robotics
hbcondo714 6y ago
Augmented Reality apps. Apple includes a LiDAR Scanner in their latest iPad that performs plane detection for AR object placement. https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/arkit/ https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/arkit/
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  More importantly, the iPhone 12 Pro will launch with one in the next month or two
  - Animats 6y ago
    And the Kinect 2 launched in 2010 with a LIDAR.
- bredren 6y ago
  As of today somewhat reliable leakers are indicating iPhone 12 will include Lidar and: >The settings have a toggle to enable "LiDAR" for "assisted auto focus and subject detection for Video and Night Mode." https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/25/iphone-12-pro-max-settings-screenshots/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/25/iphone-12-pro-max-setti...
- michaelmior 6y ago
  I think it's a sign I need to go to bed when I read "plane detection" and start wondering what airplane detection has to do with AR...
  - bigiain 6y ago
    I've been thinking idly about how to feed ADSB signals into the new Microsoft flight sim so you could fly alongside real aircraft in real time...
nradov 6y ago
It's hard to see submersibles ever being more than a tiny niche market. There just aren't very many. And commercial and military submersibles often have to operate in poor visibility conditions where lidar range is near zero.
- darksaints 6y ago
  There's a pretty big niche market for submersibles, and they aren't very price sensitive: drug cartels.
- gibolt 6y ago
  I was thinking of the equivalent of Planet's earth-facing imaging satellites, but a fleet of deep sea drones scanning the sea floor to high precision.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Sonar works far better than lidar for precision seafloor scanning.
darksaints 6y ago
Bathymetry comes to mind, and I believe it is becoming more relevant in archeology as well.
totetsu 6y ago
Archiving of world heritage sites https://hyperallergic.com/438821/google-arts-culture-open-heritage/ https://hyperallergic.com/438821/google-arts-culture-open-he... Archaeology finding things under the surface https://3dprint.com/140498/3d-aerial-laser-scanning-cambodia/ https://3dprint.com/140498/3d-aerial-laser-scanning-cambodia... and https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lidar-reveals-oldest-biggest-ancient-maya-structure-found-mexico https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lidar-reveals-oldest-big... surveying https://terra-drone.eu/en/drone-mapping/drone-lidar/ https://terra-drone.eu/en/drone-mapping/drone-lidar/
stonogo 6y ago
LIDAR point clouds are the bedrock of modern surveying and cartography (and thence civil engineering in general). https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-lidar-data-and-where-can-i-download-it https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-lidar-data-and-where-can-i-do... https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/3d/survey.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/3d/survey.cfm
kartikkumar 6y ago
LIDAR has interesting space applications for Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC). For instance, I worked on the design of a mission concept for multi-target Active Debris Removal [1], for which flash LIDAR was an important part of the GNC package, in addition to stereo visual cameras, and various other sensors. For non-cooperative targets, LIDAR is a pretty important technology, due to possible varying lighting conditions. LIDAR has been used for close proximity GNC for the International Space Station too [2]. Compact, low-power flash LIDAR will open up a slew of applications like on-orbit satellite servicing and refuelling. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301359099_Agora_Mission_to_demonstrate_technologies_to_actively_remove_Ariane_rocket_bodies https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301359099_Agora_Mis... [2] https://neptec.com/products/lidar/ https://neptec.com/products/lidar/
dbetteridge 6y ago
Solid setup's for accurate BIM model building, the current scanners need a bunch of time to use because it is cost prohibitive to have more than one, this makes the scanning somewhat costly as you're paying for a techs time to setup/wait for scanning. Build a mesh network of a dozen sensors and join up the results to scan entire buildings in a few hours and you'll have some very happy engineers.

by gibolt 6y ago

duxup 6y ago

Yeah I'm wondering what the usage is here beyond self driving vehicles as well. Feels like there are a lot of sky high prices lidar companies and yet the failing of self driving cars so far isn't lidar....

qppo 6y ago

Drones?

nradov 6y ago
Yes a lightweight, low-power lidar would be useful for collision avoidance when flying near terrain.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Many Polish government leaders were killed in 2010 in a crash in Russia when their pilots attempted to land in bad weather using a radar altimeter over rough terrain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_air_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_air_disaster (In Eastern Europe, pilots are pressured to continue VIP flights despite risks. So the PIC was likely told, "Fly and land, or be fired/arrested on the spot." There were "non-crew" reported in the cockpit, likely demanding a landing at the intended airport instead of an alternate. Some US regional airlines have also been caught firing pilots when maintenance problems are reported, but US civilian pilots (and dispatchers) are the final authority, and thankfully regional airlines are mostly gone since the FAA 1,500 hour rule.) So there are aviation use-cases for 3d radar/lidar navigation. Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.
- abakker 6y ago
  Absolutely, many drones do use Lidar. But, there probably aren't a million drones with high res Lidar in the world.

georgeburdell 6y ago

Robotics

hbcondo714 6y ago

Augmented Reality apps. Apple includes a LiDAR Scanner in their latest iPad that performs plane detection for AR object placement. https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/arkit/ https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/arkit/

wlesieutre 6y ago
More importantly, the iPhone 12 Pro will launch with one in the next month or two
- Animats 6y ago
  And the Kinect 2 launched in 2010 with a LIDAR.
bredren 6y ago
As of today somewhat reliable leakers are indicating iPhone 12 will include Lidar and: >The settings have a toggle to enable "LiDAR" for "assisted auto focus and subject detection for Video and Night Mode." https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/25/iphone-12-pro-max-settings-screenshots/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/25/iphone-12-pro-max-setti...
michaelmior 6y ago
I think it's a sign I need to go to bed when I read "plane detection" and start wondering what airplane detection has to do with AR...
- bigiain 6y ago
  I've been thinking idly about how to feed ADSB signals into the new Microsoft flight sim so you could fly alongside real aircraft in real time...

nradov 6y ago

It's hard to see submersibles ever being more than a tiny niche market. There just aren't very many. And commercial and military submersibles often have to operate in poor visibility conditions where lidar range is near zero.

darksaints 6y ago
There's a pretty big niche market for submersibles, and they aren't very price sensitive: drug cartels.
gibolt 6y ago
I was thinking of the equivalent of Planet's earth-facing imaging satellites, but a fleet of deep sea drones scanning the sea floor to high precision.
- nradov 6y ago
  Sonar works far better than lidar for precision seafloor scanning.

darksaints 6y ago

Bathymetry comes to mind, and I believe it is becoming more relevant in archeology as well.

totetsu 6y ago

Archiving of world heritage sites https://hyperallergic.com/438821/google-arts-culture-open-heritage/ https://hyperallergic.com/438821/google-arts-culture-open-he... Archaeology finding things under the surface https://3dprint.com/140498/3d-aerial-laser-scanning-cambodia/ https://3dprint.com/140498/3d-aerial-laser-scanning-cambodia... and https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lidar-reveals-oldest-biggest-ancient-maya-structure-found-mexico https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lidar-reveals-oldest-big... surveying https://terra-drone.eu/en/drone-mapping/drone-lidar/ https://terra-drone.eu/en/drone-mapping/drone-lidar/

stonogo 6y ago

LIDAR point clouds are the bedrock of modern surveying and cartography (and thence civil engineering in general). https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-lidar-data-and-where-can-i-download-it https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-lidar-data-and-where-can-i-do... https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/3d/survey.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/3d/survey.cfm

kartikkumar 6y ago

LIDAR has interesting space applications for Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC). For instance, I worked on the design of a mission concept for multi-target Active Debris Removal [1], for which flash LIDAR was an important part of the GNC package, in addition to stereo visual cameras, and various other sensors. For non-cooperative targets, LIDAR is a pretty important technology, due to possible varying lighting conditions. LIDAR has been used for close proximity GNC for the International Space Station too [2]. Compact, low-power flash LIDAR will open up a slew of applications like on-orbit satellite servicing and refuelling. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301359099_Agora_Mission_to_demonstrate_technologies_to_actively_remove_Ariane_rocket_bodies https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301359099_Agora_Mis... [2] https://neptec.com/products/lidar/ https://neptec.com/products/lidar/

dbetteridge 6y ago

Solid setup's for accurate BIM model building, the current scanners need a bunch of time to use because it is cost prohibitive to have more than one, this makes the scanning somewhat costly as you're paying for a techs time to setup/wait for scanning. Build a mesh network of a dozen sensors and join up the results to scan entire buildings in a few hours and you'll have some very happy engineers.