All about automotive lidar

Here I'll provide a comprehensive overview of automotive lidar technology. Lidar is used for autonomous vehicles and robotics because it's a cool technology.

FIGURE 1 Waymo Jaguar I-Pace with several lidars.

FIGURE 2 A Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid with 8 Ouster lidars.

1 What lidar does

A lidar is a sensor which operates by bouncing light off surrounding surfaces. Lidars typically quantify:

distance, by measuring how much time it takes for light to bounce back

bearing, by shining the light or pointing the detector in a particular direction

reflectivity, by measuring how much light has bounced back

speed, by measuring the Doppler shift in the reflected light.

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