SPACs are the Future of AV Startups
LIDAR is a core technology that powers self-driving cars.

It’s also what I’m naming my new cover band where we do 90’s themed remixes of Lionel Richie songs.

LIDAR systems are usually (not always) mounted on top of self-driving cars/other autonomous vehicles (AVs):

Besides being a very fashionable top hat for you car, LIDAR systems are core to helping an AV “see”.

A LIDAR system is like a group of TIE fighters strapped to your car roof — they’re constantly shooting out lasers. Most used to spin, but modern ones are smaller and will still provide a 360° view.

“Pew pew pew”

Thousands of laser pulses are sent out every second. Every SECOND. When they hit an object and bounce back to the LIDAR, the reflection points are recorded to build a 3D point cloud. This can be done because we know how fast light is and how far it travels.

That cloud can then be turned into a 3D representation of the car’s surroundings. Here’s a look at how Uber tackles the problem:

Velodyne is a huge player in the LIDAR market. They’re one of the OGs in the space and they’ve kept up with industry innovations via sexy, smaller lidars.

As you can see, LIDAR is pretty great at telling the car how far away things are, but not really great at telling the car what they are. Because of this, most current AV approaches combine LIDAR data with camera + visual recognition data.
['Murto Hilali']
['Finance', 'Technology', 'Business', 'Startup', 'Lidar']