Modern electronics are bristling with cameras, Bluetooth, and other less common sensors. LiDAR is one such sensor that’s found its way into Apple’s iPhone 12, as well as many robot vacuums and most self-driving cars. The basics of lidar will be explained from a non-technical point of view in this article
From an article in Business Insider by Dave Johnson.
LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging and is like RADAR but substitutes laser light in place of radio waves. And it’s an increasingly important sensor in consumer electronics.
What LiDAR is and how it works
You might be aware that RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) transmits radio waves and measures the time it takes to get a return signal, which provides information about how far away objects are.
LiDAR works much the same way, measuring the “Time of Flight” (ToF) of a laser beam to get information about objects the laser bounces off of.
LiDAR has a big advantage over RADAR, though. Because light has a much shorter wavelength than radio waves, it’s more accurate and can paint a more detailed picture of the target. That means LiDAR doesn’t just measure the distance to something; it can infer a lot of information about the object’s shape, too.
That’s not all; with repeated pings, it’s possible to determine not just its direction of motion and speed, but its orientation as well. For example, a device with LiDAR can learn details about how nearby objects are turning and whether they’re facing towards or away from the LiDAR device.
LiDAR isn’t the first Time of Flight sensor to find its way into consumer electronics. Samsung has infrared ToF sensors in smartphones like the Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra, for example, but they’re not lasers, just infrared beams. The Galaxy phones also include an app called Quick Measure which uses ToF to estimate the size and volume of an object in front of the phone.
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