Market Sector Insight: Consumer LIDAR

LiDAR, the optical equivalent to RADAR, is a photonics technology involving lasers and optical sensors to scan a field of view gathering distance measurements to objects within range. Repeated measurements allows object characteristics to be determined including movement. As a technology. LiDAR has been dominated by commercial automotive applications grabbing the headlines in the rush towards the goal of fully autonomous vehicles.

But LiDAR has wide-ranging commercial applications and the greatest impact outside of automotive is likely to be in consumer electronics and the smart home, and it is easy to see how LiDAR sensing could eventually become a simple ubiquitous add-on to a wide range of smart consumer devices.

However this is not without technical and commercial challenges as applications have to meet stringent technical constraints including performance, quality, and physical size. Above all, LiDAR has to excel as a technical solution in a world where other competing technologies are also improving (such cameras with RADAR and AI image processing).

The LiDAR market is at a very interesting juncture in its development. It has successfully moved from innovation to becoming a tried and tested technology. It is already ubiquitous in smart phones and if technical and commercial challenges are met, LiDAR is poised to exploit new opportunities and make a leap into other consumer electronics categories.

© 2021 Optica Publishing Group