Developed in the 1960s, LiDAR Poised for Growth

Light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, has been adopted for mapping and surveying across disciplines, such as the military, archaeology, agriculture, and geology. Adoption is spreading because of innovations, such a beam steering technology, and use cases, such as developing autonomous vehicles.

ID TechEx (Cambridge, UK: www.idtechex.com), predicts that LiDAR will become an $8.4 billion-dollar market by 2033, according to a new report from the market research firm in which it recounts the history of LiDAR, its growth, and future prospects. A summary of key points is included here.

History of LiDAR

LiDAR has a long history, and its development has occurred in four stages, as shown in Figure 1. LiDAR was developed in the 1960s not long after the invention of the laser. Its ranging function was developed for aerospace and defense purposes initially. Later LiDAR was used to measure angles and velocity.

Commercial and industrial uses of LiDAR started appearing in the 1980s, and its deployment in the 1990s benefited from the development of diode systems. Single-line scanning systems enable LiDAR to be used in other applications as well. In addition, GPS with the accuracy to the centimeter level, promoted the combination of LiDAR and positioning systems. These areas of progress have allowed LiDAR to be deployed in industrial and early-stage autonomous vehicle projects. It wasn't until the 2000s that LiDAR started to be applied in commercial automotive applications.

Since the commercial production of the first LiDAR in 2017, an increasing number of players have focused on automotive applications.

As the level of autonomous driving in vehicles moves to the third (L3) out of six levels, the LiDAR industry has seen speedy progression. LiDAR has received huge investment and is moving toward chips and arrays with better performance.

Figure 1: LiDAR development path. Images courtesy of IDTechEx

Competitive Technology Landscape

Unlike other sensors—such as cameras or ultrasonic systems—LiDAR is a relatively immature technology, with a high price, unestablished supply chain, and an ever-changing market landscape. The rapidly evolving LiDAR technologies and markets leave many questions to answer.

The technology landscape is cluttered with numerous options for every component in a LiDAR system, as shown in Figure 2. The combinations of different ranging measurement processes, laser types, beam steering mechanisms, photodetector choices, wavelength options, and optical path possibilities add up to a massive number of possible LiDAR technologies and corresponding products. However, not all combinations are equally easy to realize. For instance, frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) usually works with 1550 nm wavelengths, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) may perform better with Flash LiDAR beam steering than edge-emitting lasers (EEL), and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have more difficulty combining with FMCW.

Figure 2: Possible LiDAR technology combinations.

Rapidly evolving business landscape

The LiDAR market landscape is also evolving rapidly. A few companies went public via a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) merger, and some ceased trading, while more established organizations partnered with tier-1 companies and OEMs in various areas. In the meantime, LiDAR companies are also experiencing difficulties such as insolvency and bankruptcy.

Despite these issues, the rapid cost reduction trend not only makes it possible to deploy LiDAR in autonomous vehicle scenarios but also in a wide range of applications developed by numerous industry partnerships as shown in Figure 3.