Introducing the OS1-128 Lidar Sensor

Keeping True to Moore’s Law.

Today we’re announcing the addition of a new sensor to our OS1 family – the OS1-128. With 128 channels of resolution producing 2.62 million points per second, the sensor leads the industry in specifications and image quality at an affordable price point.

We launched the OS1-64 almost exactly a year ago, so with the OS1-128 moving into volume production this summer, we doubled performance in exactly 18 months, staying true to our promise to bring Moore’s Law to the lidar industry.

The OS1-128 leverages the same core Multi-Beam Flash Lidar technology in all of Ouster’s products but with denser point clouds and several other improved specifications:

Larger vertical field of view – The OS1-128 has a 45° vertical field of view, the widest available of any commercially sold high-performance lidar sensor. It is perfect for safety-critical robotics applications like autonomous vehicles, where minimizing lidar blind spots has been challenging to date. You can see right down to the tires of a car while still capturing points well above the horizon – a first for lidar sensors.

Higher angular resolution – With a 0.35° vertical angular resolution and uniform spacing throughout the field of view, we’re able to produce a consistent and denser point cloud. Again, this is perfect for safety-critical applications where object classification is necessary, but also a huge benefit for mapping applications that require finer details.

Improvement without compromise: We believe true innovation in lidar means decoupling performance boosts from size, mass, power, manufacturability, and reliability – and we’ve done just that with the OS1-128. Even with double the laser beams, our 128 channel lidar remains the exact same size and mass, and consumes the same 14-20W of power. It is a plug-and-play upgrade to other OS1 products.

Highest quality range, intensity, and ambient imagery – With 128 channels stacked up, firing at every 0.18° horizontally, the OS1-128 collects 2,621,440 points per second. With the OS1-64, we’re already able to achieve our unique perfectly correlated 3D and 2D range, intensity, and ambient camera-like images. The OS1-128 takes that imagery to the next level with double the vertical resolution, further transforming the speed of applying 2D deep learning algorithms on 3D point cloud data.

These improvements in resolution also benefit from the same quality and reliability achievements that Ouster continues to deliver. Other high resolution lidar sensors on the market have been plagued with high field-failure rates that scale with resolution. Ouster’s simple design sets a new bar in the lidar market and offers increased resolution without reliability compromises.

With all these features, the OS1-128 is priced aggressively at $18,000, six times cheaper than the competing 128-channel lidar sensor on the market, and less than most other lidar sensors with a fraction of the beams . We’re committed to providing the lowest price at every performance level, and we’ll continue to bring transparency to the lidar market.

We expect the OS1-128 to be available for volume purchases in the summer of 2019. Reach out to us to purchase initial units and inquire about volume pricing. We can’t wait to see what you build with the OS1-128!