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Just a few years ago, lidar sensors cost tens of thousands of euros. Now they are to become mass-produced – and enable a new type of mobility.
Camera or lidar? That has been the question for a long time autonomous driving. Now an answer emerges: Because the once extremely expensive lidar technology seems finally to be attractively priced after around six decades of development.
Not a new invention
In the middle of the last decade, experts from the management consultancy Boston Consulting Group estimated the cost of a lidar system suitable for passenger cars at around 50.000 euros. A price that was out of reach for private customers and even for commercial robotaxi services. Even then, lidar was not a new technology. Its origins date back to the 1960s, and it gained wider public awareness at the latest when the Apollo 15 astronauts used it to survey the lunar surface in the early 1970s.
Since then, numerous areas of application have been added: from weather observation to geography and robotics to speed measurement in road traffic. Only the large-scale use in automobiles is still missing - traditionally a particularly demanding task, because vehicles move for years in wind and weather on all types of roads and cannot be serviced and checked every day.
In principle, the laser scanner works like a radar. But instead of radio or radio waves, it emits infrared light and uses the reflections to calculate the nature of its surroundings. The functional relationship can also be found in the usual designation of the laser scanner, because "lidar" is a portmanteau of "light" and "radar". Today, however, technicians derive the term as an abbreviation of “light imaging, detection and ranging”. This designation already contains what the technology can do: It forms an image of the environment, detects obstacles and measures their distance. These are definitely interesting skills for orienting an autonomously driving car. However, not unique.
What to do in the dark and fog?
Other sensors can also offer similar functions as the lidar. First of all, of course, the radio wave radar, which, however, traditionally has disadvantages in terms of range, resolution and susceptibility to interference. Or the camera, which, with the right software, clearly recognizes its surroundings and also allows distances to be calculated, but gets out at the latest when it is dark and foggy. Nevertheless, Tesla in particular has high hopes for the video sensor and the appropriate algorithms for its autopilot assistants. Elon Musk still defends the superiority of the technology to this day - even if it does not allow full autonomy and is repeatedly criticized due to accidents.
The reasons for the lidar rejection at Tesla and other software-driven companies may have several reasons. First and foremost probably the price and the difficult availability. But aesthetic considerations will also play a role. Anyone who remembers Google's autonomous small car prototype Firefly can understand: the knobbly two-door car had a huge 360-grand lidar dome from the manufacturer Velodyne on the roof, which almost looked like an old-fashioned police flashing blue light. The scanner apparently worked, but nobody in the established car industry wanted it.
Many are ready
A lot has happened since the days of the automotive pioneers. Velodyne was soon joined by Luminar with its significantly flatter housing, followed a short time later by established suppliers such as Valeo, Bosch, Continental and VW cooperation partner Argo. All of them have car-compatible systems in their range or are about to be launched on the market. And the first production vehicles with laser scanners are also coming onto the road, such as the electric Mercedes EQS, which will in future be highly automated with the help of the sensor in the front. The new competition and the beginning relevance to the market are accelerating development and causing prices to fall. The sensors are currently available for well under 10.000 euros, and experts expect low four-digit prices in the medium term.
Essential for VAG
The prospects are good for the big automakers. Because without cheap lidar systems, autonomous driving will probably be nothing. VW CEO Herbert Diess has just confirmed again in the Reddit chat that he considers the redundancy implemented by the scanner to be indispensable for safe operation. Volvo's head of technology for autonomous driving, Martin Kristensson, sees it similarly, who generally cannot imagine doing without lidar. The Swedes themselves will use the technology in their upcoming electric flagship, which is scheduled to be on the road autonomously in California later this year.
Both industry representatives mean the same thing: the robot car needs all its senses to find its way anywhere and anytime in the future. Even if and precisely because the capabilities of individual sensors overlap. This is to be checked in Germany from the end of the year. Then Sixt and the sensor specialist Mobileye, which belongs to the Intel group, want to start in Munich with the first autonomous taxi fleet. In addition to the camera and radar, the lidar will also be on board. Around 60 years after his birth, his heyday still seems to be ahead of him.