Lumotive has introduced a disruptive beam-steering technology that it believes will significantly improve the performance, reliability, and cost of LiDAR systems for the emerging self-driving car industry. Initially targeting the robo-taxi market, the patented system uses Liquid Crystal Metasurfaces (LCM) and silicon fabrication to achieve high manufacturing efficiency while simultaneously delivering impressive range, resolution, and frame rate.
Current LiDAR systems rely on mechanical scanning, which suffers from poor reliability, cost and form factor and, most importantly, limits the performance of existing systems. In contrast, Lumotive’s beam steering technology uses LCMs, semiconductor chips that steer laser pulses based on the light-bending principles of metamaterials, and a first for LiDAR.
The LCMs have large apertures to improve LiDAR perception while benefiting from the economics of semiconductor manufacturing to enable low cost systems. Lumotive’s system features:
- Large optical aperture (25 x 25 mm) which delivers long range
- 120-degree field-of-view with high angular resolution
- Fast random-access beam steering
For more info, visit Lumotive.