Lidar, or light detection and measurement, is a system that combines three technologies: laser, global positioning system (GPS) and inertial navigation system (INS) to obtain data and generate accurate DEM (digital elevation model). In terms of working principle, there is no fundamental difference with microwave radar, but compared with microwave radar, it has the characteristics of high resolution, good concealment, strong resistance to active interference, good low-altitude detection performance, small size and light mass.

With the continuous development and popularization of laser technology, the application fields of LIDAR are becoming more and more popular. Driverless cars, unmanned aircraft, 3D printing, VR/AR and other fields can see its figure.

Driverless car

The application of LIDAR in driverless cars is no longer news, and LIDAR is also known as the driverless eyes. Driverless is a very popular technology in recent years. Currently, driverless cars are intelligent cars that sense the road environment through on-board sensing systems, automatically plan the driving route and control the vehicle to reach the intended target.

How does LIDAR help the car identify intersections and directions? The technology used by LIDAR is time-of-flight, which is the calculation of the relative distance between a target and itself based on the time it takes for the laser to bend back after encountering an obstacle. The laser beam accurately measures the relative distance between the edges of the contours of objects in the field of view and the device. This contour information forms a so-called point cloud and maps the 3D environment with an accuracy of up to the centimeter level, thus improving measurement accuracy.

Unmanned aircraft

Driverless technology is not only useful for cars, but also for pilotless planes in the future, which sounds cool! It is an unmanned aircraft operated by radio-controlled equipment and its own programmed control device. There is no cockpit on board, but there is an autopilot, program control device and other equipment installed. The personnel on the ground, on the ship or at the remote control station of the mother plane track, locate, remote control, telemetry and digital transmission through radar and other equipment. It can take off like an ordinary aircraft under radio remote control or be launched into the air with a booster rocket, and can also be brought into the air by the mother aircraft for launch flight.

In the case of unmanned aircraft, on-board radar is also crucial. Airborne LIDAR is an airborne laser detection and ranging system mounted on an aircraft that measures the three-dimensional coordinates of ground objects. Developed by NASA back in the 1970s, LIDAR mapping technology airborne laser sweeping technology began to evolve and rapidly, and became commercially available around 1995.

3D Printing

In recent years, 3D printing has attracted much attention, it is a digital model file-based, the use of powdered metal or plastic and other bondable materials, through the way layer by layer printing to construct objects. 3D printing as a cutting-edge, pioneering intelligent manufacturing technology, will lead the traditional production methods and production process changes, is expected to become a new round of industrial revolution to promote the source of power.

In 3D printing, there are also places where LIDAR is used, such as the very hot Printoptical3D printing technology is essentially a "one-stop technology from CAD design to optical parts", and its printed optical parts do not need to be polished, ground and colored as a post-processing. This technology is primarily based on sophisticated wide-format industrial inkjet printing equipment, where transparent polymer droplets are ejected through UV curing and then cured by a strong UV lamp integrated into the print head, resulting in a variety of geometric shapes that can be measured, monitored, etc. by LIDAR.

VR/AR

VR/AR is also a fire in recent years, the market prospect is considerable, VR all-in-one machine, smart glasses and other products have been on the market, AR glasses, AR headset application is also very wide.