The unmanned research started in the 1970s with the original intention of assisting or replacing human driving, building a safer urban transportation system, and reducing the incidence of traffic accidents. This means that safety and stability will be unmanned. The most basic and most important evaluation indicator. Therefore, the ability of unmanned vehicles to sense the external environment has received special attention.
As the core sensor of driverless cars, laser radar is equivalent to the visual aspect of the human body, but the difference is the size of the field of view and the distinguishable distance and accuracy. At this stage, the mechanical laser radar is mostly used in the unmanned scene, but due to the characteristics of the technical solution itself, the application of mechanical laser radar has become a bottleneck, and the wide application to the field of driverless vehicles is no longer Too realistic.
MEMS is optimistic, the green laser pointer radar technology program is becoming more and more clear. The mechanical rotary laser radar obtains the surrounding environmental data through 360° scanning, but the long-term rotation loss of the single-point or multi-point ranging module is prone to stability. The problem of reduced sex, and with the increase of the number of lines, the cost is greatly increased, and the difficulty of mass production, the inability to pass the car rules and other issues also make Lidar manufacturers begin to study alternatives that are more suitable for unmanned scenes.
Compared with mechanical scanning, solid-state solutions such as Flash, MEMS, and OPA can directly avoid structural rotation and reduce loss, and at the same time, can greatly save installation costs and accelerate mass production.
At present, the mainstream solid-state solutions in the industry are Flash and MEMS. There is no effective solution for the high-power problem of the Flash solution in the long-distance scene, so it is not suitable for the automatic driving scene; and the MEMS is to change the optical path through the micro-scanning galvanometer to realize the scanning. The drastic reduction of mechanical components inside the laser radar is currently the most technical solution for passing the car gauge. Therefore, a few companies on the market that have introduced automotive-grade laser radar products are basically MEMS-based solutions.
According to public information, foreign manufacturers of car-level green laser pointer radar products, including Velodyne, Ibeo and Innoviz. At present, in addition to Ibeo’s Scala, Velodyne and Innoviz have adopted a solid-state solution, while Scala will adopt a solid-state solution in the third generation; in terms of application, the 4-line Scala has been assembled in a production model (Audi A8) On the other hand, the L3-level autopilot is supported, while the other two products are aimed at the autopilot scene above the L3 level.
Among domestic manufacturers, only Sagitar and Jiaguang Technology have introduced MEMS laser radar products at the car level. Sagitar has launched RS-LiDAR-M1pre to meet the market demand for laser-level laser radar; Jiaguang Technology will officially launch MEMS-based INS-M1 MEMS-based laser radar product in the second half of the year, which is now available on Jiaguang Technology. See the relevant performance parameters of the product. It is reported that the product is developed by Jiaguang Technology and domestic Tier-1, so it has a leading edge in the adaptability of vehicle regulations.
Compared with the above information, foreign manufacturers are still in the lead, but the growth rate of domestic manufacturers is also expected. It is believed that after continuous iteration, the gap between domestic laser radar products and foreign companies will be rapidly narrowed, and the market structure will be rewritten. .