> The OS0 lidar sensor: an ultra-wide field of view sensor with 128 lines of resolution > The OS2 lidar sensor: a long-range sensor with up to 128 lines of resolution > Two new 32 channel sensors: both an OS0 and OS2 version > Price: Starts at $16,000 with volume discounts available I would LOVE to get my hands on this tech. Maybe in 5-10 years when the price comes down to commodity level for hackers to play around w…
Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
111–120 of 122 posts
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#112Am surprised no one yet cited Elon saying "this is fool's errand" because of price, complexity, etc. I think LIDAR will improve significantly the safety of vehicles (autonomous or not) because it can definitely see better and deeper, even in damning weather conditions (rain, fog, haze). Alas, the price of these devices has to come down at least one order of magnitude. Maybe even two. Still, I am really thankful that…
And this seems to prove him right with $6k - 16k price range. Far too expensive to be practical. Still the potential is there for it to be a useful component for self driving vehicles, only if the price comes down an order of magnitude.
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laser light is much worse for the eyes because the energy is concentrated. It’s why you can buy 100W light bulbs but a 50mW laser needs a warning label.
It’s just a relatively simple calculation of (amount of energy/amount of space) * time You could have a 100w laser pointed at your eye, but if it only operates for a femtosecond it would have no effect. The light isn’t worse or better than any other form of light.
I’d be absolutely shocked if biological systems were somehow different.
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really depends on the type of RADAR being used. If it's an FMCW radar, typically you will get a beat signal whose frequency corresponds to the target range. That frequency will vary with range, and in order to be well resolved you have to observe it for something like 1/period. So that puts a fundamental lower bound on how long you have to integrate. There are lots of tricks to improve things, and there are lots o…
That doesn't explain 100ms delays though. Speed of light times 100ms round trip is 15,000 km.
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this seems to prove him right with $6k - 16k price range. Far too expensive to be practical. Still the potential is there for it to be a useful component for self driving vehicles, only if the price comes down an order of magnitude.
How much is a chauffeur? Or taxi driver salary?
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#116Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
It really depends on the type of RADAR being used. If it's an FMCW radar, typically you will get a beat signal whose frequency corresponds to the target range. That frequency will vary with range, and in order to be well resolved you have to observe it for something like 1/period. So that puts a fundamental lower bound on how long you have to integrate. There are lots of tricks to improve things, and there are lots o…
That doesn't explain 100ms delays though. Speed of light times 100ms round trip is 15,000 km.
Like I said I was just speculating about why OP specifically mentioned 10-100ms. the light does indeed travel pretty quickly (although, as anybody in the radar/lidar industry will tell you, not nearly quickly enough!), however the round trip time is just the minimum latency you have to eat to get any information about your target. Once you have light coming back, you need to integrate for some about of time to achieve your desired SNR. That time could be very small, or it could be infinite if there are no photons coming back. Let's randomly say that you're using a RADAR with a Tx bandwidth situated such that the round trip time is 1us, and that your target range is s.t. the beat frequency of the return is 1kHz. Your job is to estimate that frequency, so you have to observe the waveform (by integrating samples for an FFT, typically) for at least one cycle of the RF wavelength. That would require that you wait 1us for the light to fly, and then wait another 1ms for the RF to cycle once. So your measurement latency is ~1ms. Now that's not 100ms, but perhaps you need more than one cycle to give a good estimate of the frequency, and then even more because the target is faint and there aren't many photons coming back. You could possibly arrive at some much higher number, like 10-100ms.
I'm not sure if that was OP's point, but that's all I'm saying ;-)
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't explain 100ms delays though. Speed of light times 100ms round trip is 15,000 km.
Also curious, most of what I’ve read about FMCW radar mentions single-digit millisecond latencies.
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#119Does anyone know whether eye safety is de facto maintained when your eye is being continuously bombarded by the 100+ scanning lasers being emitted from each of the 100 cars in the vicinity of an intersection? I'm on board with the case with a handful of lasers scanning by quickly but the energy may really start to add up in certain plausible future scenarios.
At 865 nm, laser eye damage is due to the laser being focused by your eyeball into a small spot on your retina. This is in contrast to other wavelengths, like 1550 nm, which do not get focused, but can instead damage the surface or your eyeball at much higher powers. However, when there are many 865 nm lidars around, each one gets focused to a different spot in your retina, so it is not any more likely to cause damag…
Re: Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wonder how much we have to blame ITAR restrictions on >1555nm lasers ... I tried looking up information about this (restriction details, otherwise feasible uses beyond that wavelength, etc) but it's hard for an outsider to quickly make sense of. Any chance you could elaborate?
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/regulations-docs... The main section on lasers starts on page 47. The rules are very complicated. See 6A995 d and f. Lasers are also covered in other sections like 6A205. (I'm amused by Raman shifters being covered-- they're literally just pressurized tubes with hydrogen and mirrors at the end-- I can't imagine anyone qualified to use one couldn't have one fabricated pretty…