Self Driving Cars
Using light to move mirrors could usher in a new generation of laser technology for a wide range of applications, including remote sensing, self-driving car navigation and 3D biomedical imaging.
Even though there have been many significant advances in autonomous driving technologies lately, there are still many challenges that need to be overcome before driverless cars can become a reality. The fact that the equipment that autonomous cars use – which includes radar sensors and cameras, among other things – is pretty heavy and cumbersome, and very expensive, is one of the few obstacles that engineers working on autonomous driving technologies are trying to overcome in order to make self-driving vehicles a viable alternative to conventional vehicles.
One recent breakthrough by researchers with the University of California promises to resolve this issue, with a report saying that a team of engineers have managed to develop a new laser technology that could help reduce the cost and weight of self-driving cars. The University of California Berkeley has reported that the new 3D-imaging technology that was developed by a team led by Connie Chang-Hasnain, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences has numerous potential applications, which include 3D biomedical imaging and remote sensing.
The researchers say that their system can help reduce the weight and size of LIDARs (sensors that are used to monitor a self-driving car's surroundings and measure the distance from other vehicles and other road users), as it uses a self-sweeping laser that is faster and lighter than the ones employed in current LIDARs, and helps sensors detect objects that are up to 30 feet away. According to the researchers, the laser can be further developed, allowing engineers to create smaller and more energy-efficient LIDARs, which would cost significantly less than the ones that are currently used by automakers and other companies developing driverless cars.
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“While meter-level operating distance is adequate for many traditional metrology instruments, the sweet spot for emerging consumer and robotics applications is around 10 meters” or just over 30 feet, says UC Berkeley’s Behnam Behroozpour.Thanks to their innovation, the system can change a laser's wavelength faster and identify a light as it is reflected off a car or another moving object, which is the main function of LIDARs. The system is called frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) LIDAR,
"The advance could shrink components that now take up the space of a shoebox down to something compact and lightweight enough for smartphones or small UAVs."
“Our paper describes a fast, self-sweeping laser that can dramatically reduce the power consumption, size, weight and cost of LIDAR and OCT devices on the market today,” said Chang-Hasnain, chair of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Graduate Group at UC Berkeley. “The advance could shrink components that now take up the space of a shoebox down to something compact and lightweight enough for smartphones or small UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles].”Considering that the LIDAR sensors that Google uses in its self-driving car program are pretty bulky and very expensive, costing about $80,000, any innovation that could help make these devices more affordable, as well as lighter and more energy-efficient, would surely help accelerate the adoption of autonomous vehicles. With cheaper, lighter and smaller LIDARs, driverless cars would be financially more viable and a lot easier to manufacture, given that they are one of the key pieces of equipment that represent a major portion of the expenses associated with building an autonomous vehicle.
| By Jordan Perch | Embed |
Author Bio - Jordan Perch is an automotive fanatic and “safe driving” specialist. He is a writer for DMV.com, which is a collaborative community designed to help ease the stress and annoyance of “dealing with the DMV.”
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