Autopilot technology is currently the hottest area and has received wide attention from society. World-renowned car companies, Internet companies, component manufacturers, and investment institutions have entered the market and are reluctant to miss this excellent market opportunity. New products are constantly being introduced, and technological research is changing with each passing day.
The SAE (American Society of Motor Vehicle Engineers) standard divides autonomous driving into 0-5 six levels, corresponding to different levels of implementation. L1 corresponds to simple driving assistance, L2 is auxiliary semi-automatic driving, L3 is automatic driving under certain conditions, L4 is high-level automatic driving, and L5 is truly complete automatic driving.
Autopilot technology can be subdivided into three key parts: perception, control, and decision-making, and the perceptual part is the basis for the latter two. Therefore, autonomous driving has high requirements for the green laser pointer sensor and requires a strong sense of the surrounding environment. Only in this way can the car react quickly to complex and volatile environments. After all, safety is always a top priority for car driving. According to foreign media reports, by 2028, cars will generally surpass humans in the perception of traffic environment.
At the end of 2017, Beijing took the lead in opening up the autopilot road test authority. Subsequently, Shanghai, Chongqing, Changsha, Shenzhen and other places also opened the road test authority, providing relevant test opportunities for relevant auto companies. In April this year, the relevant state departments officially released the first national-level automatic driving road test document – “Intelligent Network Linked Vehicle Road Test Management Specification (Trial)”. It can be seen that as the main direction of the next generation of transportation innovation, autonomous driving has received great attention from the national government.
At present, the domestic companies with the highest level of auto-driving are hundreds of degrees. In April 2017, Baidu announced the launch of the Apollo program to promote the development of autonomous vehicle projects. The project successfully attracted many car companies represented by Mercedes-Benz and Ford. Baidu CEO Li Yanhong even took the self-driving car on the fifth ring and became a hot spot of concern for the whole people at that time.
In March 2017, Wei Lai Automobile released its unmanned concept car called NIO EVE at the SXSW conference in Texas. It is reported that this model is also equipped with an artificial intelligence engine called “NOMI”, the cruising range can reach an astonishing 965 kilometers. However, the official did not disclose more details on the driverless side.
Currently, two types of green laser pointers are used in automobiles: cameras, ultrasonic or radar sensors. The camera is very susceptible to rain and snow, and the practical reliability is not high. Lidar has the potential of continuous high-precision 3D scanning and strong anti-interference ability, so it is highly praised by car developers.
Although the laser radar has been in existence for decades, it is still relatively new technology in the automotive field. Lidar consists of two parts: laser detection and laser ranging, which is equivalent to the eyes of autonomous driving. In addition to the transmitter (laser beam), the lidar system requires a highly sensitive receiver that is primarily used to measure the distance between stationary and moving objects.
However, for now, due to the high cost of the green laser pointer radar, the application is greatly limited. In order to reduce the cost of using laser radar and improve product reliability, the use of solid-state laser radar instead of traditional mechanical laser radar is the current mainstream method.
The MEMS solid-state laser radar RS-LiDAR-M1 Pre, launched by Sagitar, is the first MEMS solid-state laser radar to be powered by unmanned vehicles. This type of laser radar scans by changing the angle of emission of a single emitter by means of a micro-galvanometer, thereby forming a scanning field of view of the area array.
The M1 Pre has a detection range of more than 200 meters, a horizontal angle and a vertical angle of 63 °*20°, a refresh frame rate of 20 fps and an angular resolution of 0.09 °*0.2 °. It is understood that this is a product with the smallest angular resolution of MEMS laser radar that has been released worldwide.
This type of solid-state laser radar is simple in structure, small in size, and relatively low in cost. In general, it is the most suitable choice for automatic driving.