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The earliest mature laser radar technology is used to detect ozone, sulfur dioxide, aerosols and other atmospheric detection of brightest laser pointer radar. In 2016, in the intersection of Temple 2 and Shenzhou 11, the use of laser radar in the two spacecraft docking process to measure the relative position, angle, etc., to ensure precision docking; and China launched Chang'e III, in the landing Used to scan the bottom of the landform, detection of obstacles, this is a terrain to detect the terrain of the lidar. In recent years, with the development of artificial intelligence, automatic driving, the rise of auxiliary driving, to promote the use of laser radar in the civilian field.

From the technical point of view, there are two main types of laser radar for civilian use:

The first is a multi-beam laser side by side rotation 360 °, each beam of laser scanning a plane. Early laser radar for the 64-line (that is, 64 laser), then has to meet the needs of automatic driving, but the cost of up to 70,000 US dollars, not accepted by the market. Later, in order to reduce costs, the company launched a 32-line, 16-line green astronomy laser radar. But the cost reduction is caused by the decline in resolution, which is easy in the vehicle driving process to detect obstacles when the blind spots, bringing security risks. The second is a solid-state lidar. This technology to the United States Quanergy Systems solid-state laser radar sensor S3, led by phased array scanning, is not commonly used mechanical scanning. It does not like the first technology will produce mechanical movement, can significantly reduce production costs. But the current technology is not mature, from the product market there is still some distance.

The biggest advantage of a lidar is that it provides distance information directly. Usually we see the photo or video is a plane, which is XY two-dimensional space, but the driver is most concerned about the distance, that is, Z coordinates, which belong to three-dimensional. The biggest selling point for automatic driving is that the accident rate of road driving can be reduced to zero. Because the automatic driving is controlled by the computer, if the system does not fail, then he will strictly abide by the traffic rules, will not appear God, drunk driving and so on. But once there is a problem, such as the previous Tesla event, it will cause a great blow to the automatic driving.

Semiconductor lasers have the greatest potential as light sources. Because the size of the semiconductor blue laser pointer can be very small, the cost is relatively low, in line with the requirements as a vehicle configuration. Now we see those who installed in the unmanned roof of the laser radar, such as Velodyne, the first is not designed for automatic driving, but the automatic driving just used some of these features, such as 360 ° scan. After real use, these should be integrated into the interior of the car, for example, integrated into the position of the lamp, the semiconductor laser happens to be able to meet this condition.

Strictly speaking, there is no laser radar on the market at the beginning of the birth is designed for automatic driving optimization design. China's many domestic laser radar manufacturers produce product shape and performance are imitating the United States Velodyne company's product design. However, Velodyne company early main audio business, after the technology upgrade, only the development of the burning laser radar technology LiDAR and fame. But some of its indicators beyond the requirements of ordinary cars, brought a high cost, and some of the necessary indicators have not been achieved. Since 2016 we are engaged in this direction of research, and with the end users and some owners to conduct extensive communication to understand their needs. We want to launch a laser radar that is optimized for automatic driving. In this way can save as much as possible to save, reduce costs, can not save the place, improve the indicators, improve safety.

Lidder's market is very large, and many colleagues are engaged in the field of research and development. In fact, the largest 3000mw green laser radar market is not the field of automatic driving, but in the service of the machine robot vision. Unmanned aerial vehicles, service robots, and some entertainment projects to capture distance from the sensor, these areas of the lidar market will be greater. At present, some domestic universities, research institutes and Baidu, Huawei and other large IT companies, production and research enterprises are in the study. Experts believe that the final product development model, or should follow the R & D, the client and the market, the three closely together, starting from the initial design, so that the product can be balanced to meet the needs of all parties to play its maximum value.