Last year, Huawei Technologies, in patent claims, said they can combine the characteristics of two lidars in one box to simultaneously operate with short- and long-range detection functions. It’s done with two sets of different transceiver signal components in one lidar.
Now the idea is in production on vehicles from Chinese automaker Jihu, including the Alpha S; Avita 11; Mecha Dragon, and Nezha S.
The procurement cost of the lidar is about USD $200—very affordable relative to other available automotive lidars.
DVN comment
The possibility to integrate short- and long-range lidar in one box allows to optimize the performance of each type of lidar, in regard with functional specifications. That allows also to use the same ICs, especially for all that concern signal processing. This is another manner to decrease the global cost of putting lidar technology in cars.
