How can picture-like images be obtained from LiDAR?

At Sensors Expo 2019, Steve Ehrsam, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Innovusion, explains how extensive details can be observed in the Innovusion Cheetah LiDAR system. Providing image-grade or picture-like images from 300 lines of angular resolution, the system can see cars over 270 meters away, detect small objects and even read signage.

The details in images are similar to those seen in early CMOS imagers. With the available accuracy and resolution, objects are not missed making safety systems much safer. Instead of a specific region of interest, the entire field of view (300 x 300 lines) is observable with 1M pixels per frame and 10 frames per second.

The lightweight, 112 x 145 x 105 mm (sensor head) system consumes only 40 watts (average) and can see out to 280 meters. At 200 meters, the system can see objects with only 10% reflectivity. For autonomous safety systems, the sooner an object can be detected, the longer the detection software has to determine and implement the proper actions.

The capabilities of the hybrid, solid-state LiDAR system are accomplished using the company’s unique dual rotating polygon design. Since polygon design has been used for over 25 years, the mature technology is enhanced by Innovusion’s proprietary detector electronics, advanced optics and hardware-accelerated sensor fusion to achieve very reliable, highly accurate and long range results.

Designed for SAE Levels 4 & 5 of autonomous driving for road vehicles, the system is already seeing success in off-road vehicles, mining equipment, construction equipment, trains and other situations where the highest image quality LiDAR is required.