Chinese LiDAR R&D enterprise RoboSense declared to have mastered the core technology of multi-beam LiDAR, and completed the research and development of the first generation of multi-beam LiDAR called “RS-LiDAR”. The product will be conducted road test in the near future. The price has not been announced yet.
Multi-beam LiDAR products can be applied for intelligent robots, self-driving cars, virtual reality, construction engineering, military cruise and so on. According to RoboSense, the product may become the first domestic multi-beam LiDAR to realize the practical application, and with the technological progress, the cost is expected to be reduced to 500 dollars for each.
Multi-beam LiDAR is one of the most important components of self-driving cars
The key point is “multi-beam”. Many manufacturers in China and abroad provide single-beam LiDAR solutions, but in lack of multi-beam (4 beams, 8 beams, 16 beams, etc.) products. Recently there are only two well-known multi-beam LiDAR suppliers — Velodyne and Ibeo.
In fact, in the early stages of research and development, Google and Baidu's self-driving cars used the top and most expensive 64-beam LiDAR (HDL-64E, produced by Velodyne), but the price of the LiDAR is nearly one hundred thousand dollars — even more expensive than a car. For Google’s third generation of self-driving car, a slightly cheaper 16-beam LiDAR was applied.
RoboSense’s new product “RS-LiDAR” is a 16-beam LiDAR. According to the official information, it is a form of mixed solid, with measuring distance of 100 meters, accuracy of 2cm, horizontal degree of 360°, vertical degree of 30°(±15°), real-time point of 320,000 points per second. Analyzed from the data, it is even slightly better than a Velodyne 16-beam product.
RoboSense plans to start a series of road tests from October this year to optimize the software and the road test subjects. If all go well, this will be the first domestically-made multi-beam LiDAR product to realize the practical application in China.
Domestic multi-beam LiDAR to change the industry of self-driving cars
As the key component of a self-driving car system, the domestic multi-beam LiDAR is possible to reduce the of threshold for self-driving cars research and development. In the past, the industry of self-driving cars is limited by the lack of domestic LiDAR technology. The introduction of RoboSense's 16-beam LiDAR will have a huge impact on changing the situation.
In Pearl River Delta region, where the industry chains of Chinese manufacturing are the most adequate, the technologies are able to be quickly and efficiently applied for products, and costs can be reduced by market and financial means. Located in Shenzhen, if RoboSense is able to successfully launch the LiDAR product at a far lower price than the foreign products while with good performance, it will have great significance for the domestic self-driving car developers, automotive technology companies and automotive OEMs.
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