Date: 12/05/2019

Sensor analysis for adas self driving car

To drive a car like we people, ADAS Systems need to see the surroundings. To do that they use three types of electronic eyes. They are Laser-based LIDARS, image sensors which are used in present-day digital cameras and microwave radars. These three combined sensors gives the visibility better than human eye.

Let's look at what all the popular sensors available in the market in all these three categories.

Lidar: the light detection and ranging technology is basically a laser sensing time of flight over an area. A laser scans the target area with optical pulse, the timing difference between the transmitted laser pulse and reflected laser pulse from scanned area is measured to find out the distance between laser source and the target.

Some of the leading sensors vendors in this market are LeddarTech, Luminar, Velodyne, Quanergy, Continental, TetraVue, Innoviz, Princeton Lightwave, Trilumina, Neptec Technologies, and Oryx Vision


Modern Lidar systems uses single chip solid-state semiconductor solutions having laser systems and supporting semiconductor systems in one package.

This solid-state radar uses arrays of small emitters generating light at different phases. These phased array systems scan the target area a few thousand times in a second without moving them mechanically. Since the angle of scan isaround 60° for these kind of solid-state sensors, you need these solid-state sensors to be fixed on all the four corners of the vehicle for effective scanning.

Wavelengths used for lidar includes 905 nm which is a infrared band, and very close to visible spectrum. Some of the latest systems also use 1550 nm lasers which is safer for eye.

The cost of self driving vehicles to fall after the cost of lidars sensors come down due to mass manufacturing.

To be continued