Digital Lidar: Realizing the Power of Moore’s Law

In 2015, our goal was to build the most performant and affordable lidar sensors upon the foundational principle that digital technology wins. From personal computers to mobile phones, cameras, and radar sensors - Aligning a hardware roadmap with a silicon roadmap harnesses the power of Moore’s Law to bring life-changing innovation to our everyday lives.

Since then, we have built upon our digital architecture to release new and improved sensors every year – something no other lidar company has done. Constant improvement is a trademark of digital technology and has been the catalyst for broad adoption across electronic applications.

Over the past 7 years, we have leveraged the proven advantages of digital technology to deliver thousands of sensors to over 600 customers across the globe. But that was just the beginning.

L3 continues our march forward in step with Moore’s Law. As a digital technology company, we leverage constantly improving silicon CMOS processes to design more powerful lidar SoCs. Digital engineering is a method widely used across the modern electronics industry, and with L3 it is making its biggest impact on digital lidar yet.

Meet the OSDome

We are also adding a completely new sensor to our REV7 lineup: the OSDome. This new sensor is built using the same digital lidar module as the rest of our products and boasts a perfect 180° hemispherical field-of-view to provide complete situational awareness. The OSDome is equipped with the L3 chip and engineered for maximum detection performance in a compact design that supports discrete integration.

OSDome is the optimal solution for indoor spatial awareness. In security and people tracking, the sensor outputs high-fidelity depth data for detection and monitoring while reducing risk of liability from privacy incidents. Smart infrastructure installments like these benefit from the OSDome’s hemispheral field-of-view and best-in-class resolution to ensure full coverage of a space around the clock.

Warehouse robots, such as forklifts, leverage the floor-to-ceiling coverage to navigate tight aisles and critical obstacles on the floor or overhead. The compact design of the OSDome offers engineers flexibility when deciding on the ideal mounting location on the system.

Over 2x Detection Range

L3 is engineered with a 10x improvement in photon sensitivity, which translates to a doubling of detection range across our entire sensor suite. With the L3 chip, OS0 and OS1 are the longest-range sensors in their class, and the OS2 crosses the critical automotive threshold of 200 m range on a 10% reflective target, and now boasts a max range over 400 m.

The L3 chip’s boost in light sensitivity also improves every sensor’s ability to detect low reflectivity objects. The OS0, our ultra-wide view sensor, can now see objects farther and clearer than any other wide field-of-view sensor on the market – out to 35 m for a 10% reflective target. This same improvement to object detection extends to the OS1 and OS2, where customers can expect an incredible increase in detection probability on all manner of targets.

The combination of best-in-class resolution and upgraded detection of the L3 chip expands the effective range of our sensors, making it easy to visualize small and detailed objects such as power lines hanging across the road.