This Startup Has An Answer To Elon Musk’s Aversion To LiDAR

Tesla boss Elon Musk has no use for LiDAR, the laser radar sensing system most automakers install on their autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year he derided the technology telling Tesla investors, “LiDAR is a fool’s errand. Anyone who relies on LiDAR is doomed.” He went on to say LiDAR is an unnecessary, expensive technology.

But the CEO of North Carolina-based startup Sense Photonics is confident his company has come up with a LiDAR system that actually “sees” better than existing systems and isn’t nearly as ugly. It’s called “flash LiDAR architecture.

“It’s very simple, has no moving parts, fully solid state,” explained Sense CEO Scott Burroughs in a phone interview. “We have a unique laser emitter we turn on that sends a high power flash of light into the field of view and the photons recycle off different objects in the field of view and reflect it back toward our LiDAR system to a lens that collects those photons, and images them onto a multiple plane array that contains simple 3D sensor chip that’s what generates the 3D point cloud.” 

Indeed, flash LiDAR architecture also includes a 3D, instead of a 2D, camera employed in many other systems, sending out a video stream. By adding the same small RGB cameras used as backup cameras in many vehicles, Burroughs believes it all adds up to more and better information guiding the robocar. 

“Because we can design it so it looks at the same field of view as our LiDAR system looks at you could put them both in the same box and overlay the two in software and end up with depth information associated with every pixel in that RGB camera so it’s a much richer data set—color high resolution and great depth, compact at lower cost,” said Burroughs.

He points to several other important differentiators that make the Sense system both more cost effective and “smarter” than existing LiDAR systems.

Aside from being solid state, Burroughs said by using a laser emitter that’s actually an array of 11,000 tiny laser emitters instead of just one big one. “Because of our core technology we can actually do that very cost effectively,” said Burroughs. “Our laser emitter costs one-one hundredth of one you can buy commercially.”

Another differentiator, said Burroughs, is the flash LiDAR’s ability to “see” where current systems cannot—what he calls “big black region of about five meters” around the vehicle, which, he said, makes navigating urban settings difficult for robocars.

“A robo taxi for an example might pull up to the curb to pick somebody up so he’s got be able to look straight down on the side of the automobile in order to see that curb and to also be able to look straight out horizontally to be able to see other people and objects,” said Burroughs. “So that’s a 90 degree field of view vertically on the side of the vehicle and that’s something we can do that nobody else seems to be able to do right now.”

Still another difference between Sense’s system, said Burroughs, is it doesn’t feature those large spinning “coffee cans” on top of a robocar. 

“Because of Flash LiDAR architecture we can actually physically separate the laser emitter from the receiver portion of the LiDAR,” explained Burroughs. “Now you have two much smaller units that allow you to design into the automobile in a much more seamless fashion.” 

So what about Elon Musk’s blunt aversion to LiDAR? Even with Sense’s improvements, is LiDAR still expensive and unnecessary? 

“We’re all curious about if that’s really going to be true or not in the long run,” said Burroughs. “Most of us, say 99% of the community, including all of the auto OEMS, are totally convinced all three sensors are necessary primarily for safety because each sensor has a limitation. Radar doesn’t have enough resolution to image objects and even in next generation radar systems, resolution won’t be good enough.” 

Sense Photonics has found some financial support, in June announcing a $26 million Series A funding round co-led by Acadia Woods and Congruent Ventures, with participation from a number of other investors, including Prelude Ventures, Samsung Ventures and Shell Ventures. It hopes to raise even more in a Series B round next year.

Meanwhile, the company is hiring more personnel and has expanded from its headquarters in the Research Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina to additional offices in San Francisco and Edinburgh, Scotland.