I read that, and was puzzled. Their press release says "Velodyne LiDAR’s new approach to the development of solid-state LiDAR sensors reflects the application of a monolithic gallium nitride (GaN) integrated circuit, developed in partnership with Efficient Power Conversion (EPC)." That's just a new drive circuit for the laser diode emitter.[1] Only 5ns pulses, too, which means depth resolution around 2 feet. There are other vendors with 1.5ns pulses. This is all on the output side; it doesn't improve the detector side.<p>Velodyne is still doing this with rotating machinery. The more advanced concepts are true solid state devices. Continental, the auto parts maker, bought Advanced Scientific Concepts' expensive, but successful technology (Space-X uses it to dock with the ISS) and is trying to make it cheaper.
If they can get the cost down, that's probably the best technology around.<p>Quantergy announced a no-moving-parts LIDAR last year, but is having trouble delivering. (Despite that, their site says "Quanergy is the leading provider of solid state LiDAR sensors." No, they're not, not until they ship the product.) Quantergy recently announced a mechanical scanner, which is apparently shipping, and now claims that their solid state unit will ship in volume in 2017. We'll see if they deliver.<p>Somebody is going to get this working soon, now that there's a market. I first saw a flash LIDAR as a demo on an optical bench at ASC back in 2012. That was clearly the right approach, but it was a long way off commercially.<p>[1] <a href="http://epc-co.com/epc/EventsandNews/News/ArtMID/1627/ArticleID/1765/EPC-Development-Board-Shows-the-Ultra-Fast-Transition-Capability-of-eGaN-FETs-over-MOSFETs-Giving-Superior-LiDAR-System-Performance-When-Used-in-Autonomous-Vehicles.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://epc-co.com/epc/EventsandNews/News/ArtMID/1627/Article...</a>
I'm looking forward to seeing the first company that uses the binary SI prefixes to describe their factory. "SpaceX's new Kibifactory plans to build 1024 rockets per year," for example.
I know almost nothing about Lidars and I was unable to find an answer to my question:<p>What happens if you have a few dozen Lidar-equipped cars in the same spot? Is there something like crosstalk, scatter or noise between the cars which result in Lidar artifacts?
Velodyne is having major production issues. Our latest order with them has been pushed back months, and our last new order was quoted at 30-40 weeks. They keep citing yield issues. I'm hoping this opens up the market for reasonably-priced competition.
This is great news. Quanergy was supposed to be selling solid state sensors by now, but they missed their deadline and have changed their answer to "soon." Regardless, so long as <i>somebody</i> is selling the sensors for cheap, it's fantastic news for robotics. It also opens up possibilities for selling to consumers as there could be phones that include these sensors (or more likely they're sold separately as dongles). Suddenly your phones would be able to do SLAM and make 3D maps of your surroundings. That would make furniture shopping a lot easier. I could also see some cool applications with augmented reality.
Really interesting comment (by TheRadicalModerate (cute handle)) attached to that IEEE Spectrum article.<p>Posits that we don't need each and every auto manufacturer to be building and developing these systems (sensors + AI). Just a handful or two of large players (and they need not necessarily be auto manufacturers themselves) all building and developing to minimum national standards.<p>Basically like the driver theory test these pieces of software must all pass the same criteria and standards. They can do better, they can set the bar higher for themselves, but there needs to be an pretty exhaustive check-list of compliance.<p>That way when you're buying a car you're not wondering which edge-case is going to get you or someone else killed.<p>There are going to be fatalities and injuries along the way, that's for sure, but so long as the number of fatalities and injuries is well below the current horrific rate this tech will be beyond revolutionary.
As much as I like LIDAR sensors, and as much as I'd like to see lower cost units, I have a suspicion that they are ultimately going to be unneeded for self-driving vehicles.<p>There's been plenty of demonstrations by various players that self-driving vehicles can get a great amount if not nearly all needed information from camera-based systems, and drive well using them.<p>Other sensors will be needed, of course - and maybe LIDAR can even play a part there; the more data you have, from more sources, the better - this has always been true in robotics.<p>I just think that LIDAR won't play a primary role, but rather as a backup or accessory system component.
They really need this. The calibration on their Lidar sensors is all over the place and for their sensors to be reliable enough to use off the shelf, they a factory.
This is not a criticism, just trying to understand better. The article's use of the word Lidars confused me. Lidar, as I understand it, is Light Detection and Ranging. A radar like system. But the it says 'Lidars' plural. Lidar is a technique not something to have multiple of. You can have multiple Lidar Arrays, or Systems or something like that but Lidars seems off to me. Is this a common way to talk about the systems?
Software engineer here, is it too late to join Velodyne and make $$$? Asking cause, they seem established, and their engineers must be now feeling like they found a pot of gold.