The Gospel of Self

大陆集团Luminar TechnologiesInnovusionAEye, Inc.

#automaticpilot #selfdriving #lidar #1550nmpulsedfiberlaser #automotive #vehiclesight #vision

1 Background

From 2015 to 2022, the country issued a number of related policies, focusing on "intelligent connected vehicles" to "autonomous vehicles". At the beginning of 2022, the state issued two plans, Intelligent Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy and Automobile Driving Automation Classification, to define the strategic position and future development direction of autonomous driving. According to the "Lidar for Automotive and Industrial Applications" industry research report released in September 2021 by Yole Development, a world-renowned consulting firm, the lidar market for automotive and industrial applications will reach 5.7 billion US dollars by 2026. And a compound annual growth rate of 21% over the next four years.

In recent years, China's high-level automatic/assisted driving technology is developing rapidly. At present, there are mainly two schools of automatic/assisted driving. One is the pure visual school represented by Tesla, and the other school tends to choose different sensor fusion schemes such as Lidar, millimeter-wave radar and camera, which are increasingly favored by more and more domestic and foreign automobile enterprises.

Lidar is a very important sensor among many sensors. With its advantages of distance ranging, high resolution and small environmental interference, it has become an important supplement for camera, millimeter wave radar and other detection methods, and has gradually become a must for many manufacturers to move towards automatic driving.

Lidar can be called the "eyes" of automatic/assisted driving, and the performance of Lidar light source will directly affect the "vision of the eyes". The higher the peak power of the lidar transmission, the farther the detection range, the higher the corresponding spatial resolution and detection sensitivity, and the less affected by the weather.

EEL type 905nm wavelength semiconductor laser has become the mainstream lidar light source due to its simple, compact structure and low cost. However, due to the limitation of the power class of the safe band of human eyes and the limitation of its own materials, it cannot operate in the mode of high refrequency and narrow pulse, which leads to the lack of distance measurement ability. To some extent, it becomes the bottleneck of its further development.

With its unique circular beam transmitting capability, VCSEL laser has certain advantages in improving radar resolution and greatly simplifying the cost of beam shaping. However, its relatively short development history and low transmitting power greatly limit its application in lidar direction.

Fiber laser has gradually become the favor of lidar manufacturers because of its excellent beam quality, narrow pulse width and high frequency. As light waves of 1.xn--5m-99b cannot be focused on the retina of the human eye, most of the light power is absorbed by the lens and vitreous body during the process of passing through the eyeball, so it does little harm to the human eye. Wavelength characteristics determine the higher safety power level of human eyes. On the other hand, the longer the wavelength, the stronger the penetration, the longer the detection distance, and the weak ambient light in this band, the less interference, the higher detection resolution. Combined, the longer detection range and more accurate resolution will allow for earlier detection and braking at high speeds to avoid injuries from accidents.

At present, the industry uses 1.5um wavelength Lidar light source (fiber laser), most of which come from a few foreign suppliers, such as BK-TEL, KPS, Lumibird, Lumianr, AEye, etc. Foreign enterprise light source is generally expensive, and the response time is slow, so it will be a good opportunity for domestic replacement in the future.

2 LiDar Laser

LSP (LumiSpot) has been deep cultivation for many years in the field of LiDar laser, committed to light up the unmanned "eyes", and let the "eyes" see further and more clearly. In the past 3 years, a series of laser radar light sources with 1.5um wavelength for human eye safety for airborne and vehicle-mounted vehicles have been launched successively (as shown in the figure below).

3 Vehicle-mounted LiDar Fiber Laser

3.1 Model

LSP-FLMP-1550-03/LSP-FLMP-1535-03

3.2 Core Technologies

Laser integration technology

Narrow pulse drive and shaping technology

ASE noise suppression technology

Narrow pulse amplification technique with low power and low repetition frequency

3.3 Application

Automatic driving

Laser ranging

Remote sensing survey

Security monitoring

3.4 Features

1) Human eye safety, 1.5um band pulse output laser, is of great significance to ensure the safety of automatic/intelligent driving vehicles;

2) Through optimization design to achieve peak output, no small pulse (sub-pulse), at the same time the beam quality is good, small divergence Angle, high repetition frequency, very suitable for distance ranging;

3) Unique pump modulation technology is adopted to avoid a large amount of ASE noise and power consumption caused by normally open pump. When reaching the same peak output, the power consumption and noise are significantly better than similar products on the market.

4) The product is small in size and light in weight (≤100g), suitable for integration or carrying to small photoelectric system, such as individual soldiers, unmanned vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles and other intelligent platforms;

5) Strong product environmental adaptability, this type of product has passed high and low temperature, impact, vibration and other environmental adaptability tests, the product can be used in complex and harsh environment, at the same time aimed at vehicle gauge level standards verification, suitable for future automatic/intelligent driving vehicle lidar

3.5 Technical Data 

The main index parameters of small LiDar pulsed fiber laser (50*70*19mm) are shown in Table 3.5. According to the specific needs of customers, further customization can be provided, such as peak output power, appearance size or irregular structure, pulse width, repetition frequency and so on.

3.6 Packing Size

4 Vehicle-mounted LiDar Fiber Laser - Mini

4.1 Model 

LSP-FLMP-1535-04-mini

4.2 Core Technology

Laser integration technology

Narrow pulse shaping technique

ASE noise suppression technology

Compact space disk fiber process

4.3 Application

Automatic driving

Laser ranging

Remote sensing survey

Security monitoring

4.4 Features

In the past two years, LSP has launched a more compact Mini LiDar pulsde fiber laser on the basis of the original 1.xn--5m-99b. Under the premise of ensuring the power required by the original ranging, the Mini fiber laser is further optimized in volume, weight, power consumption and other aspects. It is one of the LiDar sources with the most compact structure and the most optimized power consumption in the industry at present. It is more suitable for automatic driving vehicle.

4.5 Technical Data

4.6 Packing Size

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