Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - March 2021 - 20

Sensors

those sensors is likely in the tens of dollars.
" When Apple enters a market like this, vendors
of the relevant components quickly ramp-up capacity,
driving down costs for everyone - and not just in the
consumer-electronics sector, " Abuelsamid explained.
" With obvious demand for lidar in high volumes,
Apple's endeavors soon will benefit all who want to
use or develop lidar sensing. "
Jellicoe observed: " If the brightness of the lasers
and the resolution of the detectors starts scaling in
the same way it did in mobile phone cameras, when
megapixels were added on an almost monthly basis,
then the Gen-3 devices will be good value very soon. "

Opsys Tech

A new category: Microflash

Opsys Tech lidar employs the same amount of light as a flash lidar but narrows
it to one pixel - 1,000 times times smaller than what a flash lidar can do.

That's one reason why Apple's entry into lidar has
raised the interest of Jellicoe and other AV tech experts.
" One of the big challenges in bringing down the cost of
lidar to a level where it can be widely adopted is scale, "
observed Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst, e-mobility, at Guidehouse Insights. In a recent Autonomous
Vehicle Engineering column he noted that the building
blocks in Apple's lidar are the same as in automotive
lidars - same type of laser, semiconductors, and detectors. Apple is using flash lidar in mobile devices such
as its iPhone 12 that start at $800, meaning the cost of

20 March 2021

Another Israeli start-up, Opsys Tech, has been impressing
AV development teams with the performance and potentially low cost of its lidar, aimed at driver-assist and
autonomous applications. " We've created a new category
of laser scanning that we call 'microflash,' " said company
executive chairman, Eitan Gertel.
Opsys' technology employs the same amount
of light as a flash lidar, but narrows it to one pixel -
1,000 times smaller than what a flash lidar can do. Its
patented electronic architecture uses Vertical Cavity
Surface Emitting lasers (VCSEL), a type of semiconductor laser diode as its pulsed light source, and a
single-chip solid-state photodetector (SPAD) receiver.
" We measure a scene 16 times faster than competitor lidars, " Gertel told AVE. " We scan the field of view
at 1,000 frames per second, but automotive guys have
no real use for 1,000 fps, so we average the data down to
30 fps. " He said the Opsys Tech lidar achieves four times
the range of flash lidar while surpassing flash lidar's
resolution and scanning rate. Gertel claimed tests have
demonstrated range of greater than 200 meters and 0.1°
x 0.1° resolution, " while maintaining full scanning rate
and range across the full FoV. "
Gertel said he expects Apple's high-volume use of
VCSELs in its new iPhone lidar to enable Opsys Tech's
device to price out at $1,000 per vehicle, or $250 per
sensor. " They appear to have a strong combination of
range, resolution, high scanning rate and prospects
for a significant cost reduction, " TTP's Jellicoe said.
" They're very experienced in scaling products. And
they know what they're doing. " ■

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Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - March 2021

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