Prediction – The 20’s Will Be the Lidar Decade
I am putting my reputation on the line with this prediction – the 2020’s will be the Lidar Decade in that the consumer will become as familiar with the term and make use of it in daily conversation as they do with GPS.
There are certainly going to be technologies competing for this title, such as 5G (and more), AR/VR, drones, AI, IoT (or IBE, Internet of the Built Environment) and most importantly autonomous vehicles. It’s the latter that will in fact drive the awareness of lidar in exactly the same way that the automotive sector drove every soccer mom to say, “I’ll just GPS it.” Not knowing of course what G, P and S stand for.
That is not to say that I think autonomous vehicles will be the norm by the end of 2020’s. I don’t. There are certainly going to be many low speed installations of driverless vehicles, but full autonomy where the vehicle does not have a steering wheel or pedals will not become the standard in the next 10 years. Too many edge cases to solve and more importantly too much public opinion to sway.
On a more dire note, if we don’t all make addressing climate change the top priority in this coming decade, it is going to be too late to reverse the environmentally damaging path that we are currently on. See this Ola Rollen video for the numbers to back this up. I have to wonder what it is going to take.
So Happy New Year to all. I hope we all have a good one and that we stay healthy.
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