Published in News

Laser disks make comeback in cars

by on04 September 2015


Old tech is back

Technology last seen in the failed Laser Disk players has been dusted off to help build self driving cars.

Pioneer is developing a 3D LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensor that could be a fraction of the cost of current systems.

The technology is an improved version of the optical pickups once used in Laser Disk players. Pioneer made these for 30 years when it abandoned the technology in 2009.

The new version of the LINDAR is compact and will costs less than US$83 by 2025.
That is the aim at least. Most self-driving cars use some form of LIDAR sensors but they cost tens of thousands of dollars. If Pioneer's plan works then autonomous vehicles such as self-driving passenger cars and smart golf carts would be cheap enough to be viable.

Small LIDAR units mounted on the four corners of a car could gather data for road outline maps, including features such as lane markings and crosswalks. It would also gather information to create detailed 3D point cloud maps of the area around the vehicle.

The system would detect objects dozens of meters ahead, measure their distance and width and identify them based on their shape.

Pioneer noted that there were similarities in manufacturing techniques for optical pickups and LIDAR systems.

It created test units of its LIDAR system and will examine them in vehicle trials, with commercialisation for business-use vehicles in 2017 and private passenger cars around 2018.

Last modified on 04 September 2015
Rate this item
(3 votes)