Yole Développment expect autonomous driving to have a huge impact on lidar technology and the related industries, as described in their report, “Lidar for Automotive and Industrial Applications 2019”.
| 2018-2024 Lidar market forecast by application (Yole 2019) |
Herewith, an extract of the interview by Yole’s Patrick Boulay with Marta Hall, Velodyne’s President of Business Development and Chief Creative Officer:
“A lidar sensor bounces laser pulses off an object, like a tree, at millions of laser pulses each second, and measures how long the light from the laser takes to reflect from the object to a light detector. The amazing thing about lidar technology is this process works for nonstationary objects in real-time, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, and other cars.. Lidar is able to accurately identify objects at up to 300m distance.
“The collaboration with Veoneer will result in millions of units produced and manufacturing cost coming down, along with a contract with a major automotive OEM. Veoneer is developing and commercializing the next generation of lidar systems for automotive applications using Velodyne’s scalable auto-grade lidar sensor, core 3D software technology and proprietary lidar ASIC engine. Both companies will contribute key components, technologies, know-how and other intellectual property needed to optimize a next generation of affordable, high performance lidars for the automotive market.
“Our lidar sensors will improve ADAS features, including Lane Keep Assistance (LKA), Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) and Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), and Blind Spot Monitoring. Our lidar solutions will be applicable for all levels of ADAS and autonomy, advancing safety in the roadways. Velodyne’s manufacturing operations include a 20,000m2 megafactory in San Jose, California, where highly-automated robotic assembly techniques are utilized to build a range of sensors. Invented by Velodyne, these revolutionary manufacturing systems form the foundation of the company’s mass production capabilities.
“Velodyne’s real-time 3D lidar sensors are built with widely available 905nm lasers and avalanche photodiodes. The established breadth and scale of the supply base for Velodyne’s 905nm lidar components are at least one order of magnitude larger than those utilized in other types of lidar technology. Many of the board- and chip-level electronic components are Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) which helps to reduce price and lead-times on both new sensors and Return Merchandise Authorisation (RMA) repairs.
