The Future Uses of LiDAR - From Cepton, Ouster and AEye

The LiDAR landscape is rapidly changing with new features and technology for many applications in ADAS, autonomous and smart city infrastructure. Auto Futures talks to representatives from Cepton, Ouster and AEye, who reveal their LiDAR's unique attributes and use cases.

Cepton LiDAR - For Everyone And Everywhere

Cepton was founded in 2016 in San Jose. Cepton first catered to automotive for ADAS because that is where the volume was, says Paul Rutter, Director of New Business Development at Cepton.

"What makes us different in the LiDAR world is one of three companies with an automotive production program. We will be launching in a General Motors vehicle next year. I have spent 32 years in the auto industry, and the price point challenges the automotive OEMs," says Rutter. Cepton supports ADAS functions in General Motors' Ultra Cruise program.

The other thing that makes Cepton unique is the scan pattern. It does not use rotating gears. It uses MMT- micro-motion technology.

"The MMT function creates our scan pattern, similar to a loudspeaker. It creates a vibration that drives the optical module that creates the unique scan pattern," he explains.

In the future LiDAR will be used in automotive, robotics, smart city infrastructure and any market where there are cameras and radar today - there will be LiDAR, says Rutter.

The company makes LiDAR in various ranges. The VISTA-X90 offers a 200-meter range of about 600 feet.

The NOVA has a 30-meter near range. It is small, lightweight and consumes less than five watts of power, says Rutter. NOVA's price is less than $100 for high-volume automotive applications. NOVA LiDARs can be placed around the vehicle, in the fascia, headlights or behind the windscreen.

Cepton recently announced, as part of the NVIDIA DRIVE Sim ecosystem, it is providing an accurate digital twin of its LiDAR technology to the platform.

Ouster's Digital Disruption 

Ouster's LiDAR is fully digital and has a high resolution.

"Ouster LiDAR is disrupting the LiDAR market - creating a fully digital LiDAR for the first time. It is like the first cameras that were using a CMOS sensor instead of a film," says Itai Dadon, VP of Smart Infrastructure, Ouster.

"Ouster is digital. We took all the thousands of components normally used in LiDAR and integrated them into two chips that we designed and developed ourselves. One chip is a single chip from where we shoot all the lasers. On the other chip is a CMOS sensor just like in the digital cameras." 

The single chip that can shoot up to 128 lasers is small. One lens sends the lasers out and one lens gets the lasers back. Then the sensor measures the time of flight of the laser. Then based on that - it detects the distance, range, and size of the object, says Dadon.

An advantage of Ouster chips with fewer moving parts will last longer. Ouster LiDAR does not need to be recalibrated and has a high resolution, says Dadon.

Ouster has an open ecosystem approach with several partners Intel, Cisco, Avanti, Outside, and NVIDIA. Ouster offers a modern API that can integrate and provide the data to any other system.

Dadon sees LiDAR as helping in intersections. It is better than Loop, which just counts cars, not cyclists or pedestrians. Radars do not detect anything in a traffic jam and can not identify pedestrians or cyclists. Cameras may not see things in sun glares, bad weather or at night when most fatalities happen.

An example of city LiDAR use is for smart crosswalks that will stop traffic when the pedestrian is detected at the crosswalk and will not allow traffic to move until the pedestrian is safely out of the crosswalk.

Because LiDAR is a private sensor - there is zero privately identifiable information, adds Dadon.

AEye's Software-Defined LiDAR 

AEye offers adaptive, solid-state, and software-definable LiDAR, named 4Sight.

"With one sensor, you can address all the needs in terms of vehicle type, and every possible use case", says Stephen Lambright, Chief Marketing Officer, AEye.

AEye is fundamentally different because it is software definable, says Lambright.

"Most LiDARs will shoot the same power of pulse in a constant pattern, repeatable over at the same frame rate forever and ever. One of three things can happen when that laser is fired off. It is either going to go off into the ether and never come back. Or it's going to go out and bounce off of something like a tree or a building and come back and bring useless information. Or it's going to bounce off of a pedestrian or a vehicle and bring back useful information. AEye aims to eliminate or reduce one in three so that every pulse that it shoots brings back useful information."

AEye LiDAR features a 1550 nanometer fibre laser, which means that superpower has a longer range. The software can control precisely where to put it in three dimensions. The laser does not have to go where it does not need to go.

The AEye LiDAR laser can be placed in three dimensions. It can be placed both in terms of x/y, but also how far the laser needs to go because the power can be amplified, he explains.

AEye LiDAR has one sensor that can be used and defined by software to do multiple things on multiple types of locations, vehicles, applications, or industries.

"Because AEye LiDAR is software definable, it is updatable over time. If you want to change it down the road, it is over-the-air updatable," says Lambright.

"You do not have to compromise your design for AEye LiDAR because you can define it to be behind the grille of a car, in the windshield on the roofline, or the top. AEye LiDAR can be used where it complements your design. You do not have to compromise the aesthetics."

Continental is AEye's largest partner for ADAS and autonomous vehicle applications. Continental is a big company with lots of different applications. One sensor can be used across multiple industries. The sensor can be optimized for different application areas, explains Lambright.

Continental and AEye will use the NVIDIA DRIVE Sim platform for AV and ADAS customers to simulate its LiDAR in various autonomous driving edge cases and environments.

Lambright notes that future LiDAR uses include trucking, logistics in ports, off-highway construction, automated hauling and mining applications.

The AEye tolling solution with Intetra can provide data of up to eight lanes of traffic per sensor. It can collect information such as vehicle speed, trajectory, type classification, tagging, dimensions, timestamp, incident detection, pedestrian safety, and smart intersections.

AEye LiDAR is being used for automatic incident detection as part of its next generation traffic management platform from Indra.

Lambright gave examples of how LiDAR and smart city infrastructure will help detect problems in the road and prevent further incidents.

He says, inherent in cars talking to the infrastructure and telling the infrastructure that a box is on the road 300 meters in front of the car. Then the infrastructure will notify the other vehicles. Or maybe a large obstacle in the road is detected then the smart infrastructure will close the lane if needed.