Blackmore Sensors and Analytics’ Blackmore AFDL is a Doppler lidar system specifically designed for autonomous fleet deployment and the Blackmore LDP is a development platform for early deployment into emerging autonomous markets such as long-haul trucking and air taxi systems. These two products address the massive demand for smarter, interference-free lidar solutions across the automotive market and beyond.
Autonomous Fleet Doppler Lidar (AFDL)
Developers building autonomous fleets have long craved Doppler lidar, to access the tremendous benefits provided by its velocity-enabled point clouds. Allegedly, Blackmore’s AFDL resolves the challenges that stymied AM lidar. As a result, fleets will see an increase in reliability and lower operating costs by reducing time-to-perception and data-annotation overhead.
Specifically, the multi-beam Doppler lidar sensor delivers instantaneous velocity and range data beyond 450 meters, with power consumption and size like a small laptop. The system supports a 120 x 30-degree field of view, software defined operation, precise velocity measurements with accuracy down to 0.1 meters/second on objects moving up to 150 m/s (335 mph), and measurement rates more than 2.4 million points/second. Blackmore’s AFDL is available for pre-order and will ship in Q2 for less than $20,000. Samples are shipping to strategic partners now.
Lidar Development Platform (LDP)
The Lidar Development Platform (LDP) pairs Blackmore’s lidar engine with interchangeable optical sensor heads to make it easy for companies to explore, test and adapt Doppler lidar for their specific needs. The platform uses software-defined lidar data, allowing users to tailor operational parameters including field of view, range, point density and scan speed on the fly with its API. The long-range forward-look optical head covers a 40 x 40-degree field of view, provides two beams to increase point throughput to greater than 1.2 million points/second, and can reach out well beyond 500 meters of range extent. Additional sensor heads will be introduced over time, and prices will vary depending upon configuration. Blackmore’s LDP is available for order immediately.