Improving Lidar - or Defeating It

The buzz at Sensors Expo pitted lidar-tech optimism against the reality of an impending shakeout.

For more than a decade, the lidar market has been led by Velodyne and its spinning towers of 64 or 128 laser beams. But the relatively high cost, delicate architecture, and beefy form factor have made it a competitive target. The growing ranks of competitors fall roughly into two camps. There are the fledgling lidar-makers with novel approaches to distance measurement, laser wavelength, and beam steering. And there are those with radar and vision systems promising lidar-level sensing capabilities at a lower cost.

The jockeying for position was on full display at the 2019 Sensors Expo and Conference, held in San Jose, Calif. “The greatest amount of discussion is about lidar right now because there are a lot of startups in that space,” observed Jim Hines, an independent consultant working on semiconductor and sensor technologies for connected and autonomous vehicles.