Waymo, Uber Driverless Projects Make Scanning Sensors Cheaper
- Lidar used during Apollo 15 mission to map the moon’s surface
- Bloomberg NEF says 10,000 cars on road will have lidar by 2020
A camera sensor sits on the roof of a Waymo Chrysler Pacifica autonomous vehicle in Chandler, Arizona.
Photographer: Caitlin O'Hara/BloombergGoogle’s Waymo, Uber and carmakers GM and Mercedes-Benz are among the companies working to put driverless vehicles in showrooms. That competition also should help lower prices that can reach $75,000 apiece for the sensors that scan a car’s surrounding environment so it knows how to drive itself.
By 2020, there will be more than 10,000 autonomous cars equipped with lidar sensors, which bounce laser beams off objects to figure out where they are in three-dimensional space, according to a report published Sept. 5 by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The scramble is prompting some of the world’s biggest technology brands -- including Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Baidu Inc. -- to invest in lidar developers.