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Ouster's new digital Lidar – 128 beams, ultra-wide view
- arcticfox 7y agoVery cool tech, and as a fan of Hyperion I think the company name is very cool as well.
- utopian3 7y ago> 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 with. :-) Since LIDARs impact airflow over the top of a car, is there a way to make LIDARs less spherical and more triangular or elliptical? How would that impact the scans and can that impact be corrected/recalibrated mathematically?
- derek_frome 7y agoWhile this is a ~80% discount on other 128 beam sensors, it's unfortunately still out of reach for the hacker community. We absolutely plan to get prices down to an affordable level for individuals in well under 5 years! Also, Ouster runs a sponsorship program that gives deeply discounted or free sensors to cool projects. If you have a cool idea, shoot me an email: derek.frome at ouster dot io
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago> deeply discounted or free sensors to cool projects This is very nice, if I only I had a cool project, I just have lukewarm ones!
- rad_gruchalski 7y agoHow can one apply for a “cool project”?
- derek_frome 7y agoEmail derek.frome at ouster dot io. I'd love to learn about your project!
- blensor 7y agoMight be interesting to add the Ouster sensor to our sensor simulation [1] to give people the ability to play around with the data even if it's outside the price range? [1] blensor.org
- max_res 7y agohttp://data.ouster.io/sample-data-1.13/index.html http://data.ouster.io/sample-data-1.13/index.html
- Darkphibre 7y agoOh, this is interesting! I've been putting together a 6-Kinect rig to take a 3D scan of my body as I go on hormone treatment and an exercise routine, monitoring subtle changes over time. Does it support Kinect v1 and changing the orientation using the built-in motors? I also have a few projects using photogrammetry reconstruction of convention booths using 2D images. I've been interested in adding in lidar/pointcloud cameras...
- syntaxing 7y agoNot sure if this fits your project but Intel's new Real Sense Lidar seems pretty cool. Meant for more indoor application though: https://www.intelrealsense.com/lidar-camera-l515/ https://www.intelrealsense.com/lidar-camera-l515/
- jefft255 7y agoAbout the airflow thing, there's nothing (to my knowledge) preventing you from changing the shape of the enclosure. It's just going to be bigger.
- ehsankia 7y agoSlightly confusing the way you pasted, not sure if intentional. OS0 starts at $6,000 with volume discounts, while the OS2 that starts at $16,000.
- DaniFong 7y agohas someone explored what the state of the art is if you just use two 1080p LG laser projectors and 2+ cameras and clever software https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1453431-REG/lg_hf80la_dlp_laser_full.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=CjwKCAiA0svwBRBhEiwAHqKjFt6k7yAADBnfi7c4mbCzvokrfWFaz2iubOAuWeB-yf43DGUyRvnjiRoCGucQAvD_BwE https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1453431-REG/lg_hf80la... it's 1080p of resolution in lighting from two angles at 60 fps for like ~100-200 W. if you had some good cameras and some clever and fast software you could use this thing to illuminate anything you need to know about -- a high frequency light probe. i don't think you need coherent light at all or phase control, you'd just like timing control so you can strobe between left and right lights and use the variation to better characterize objects. whole system seems doable in budgets of ~$8k hardware (total guess...)
- ChuckMcM 7y agoI'm already thinking of the scrap yards where these might end up when cars with them are totaled by the insurance company :-). But I agree, if they can do exponential improvements in processing then this version will be fairly cheap in roughly 5 years.
- scotty79 7y agoI wonder how well this works if 20 such devices shine on the same object.
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoThat's sort of like asking how well cameras would work if 20 of them were looking at the same object. Lidar sensors can interfere with each other, and a certain industry-standard company is famous for having terrible problems with this issue, but there are engineering solutions to this problem. FMCW is a popular choice, and gives the benefit of providing instantaneous velocity readings. Of course, due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, this means you also get worse distance estimation. There are other ways to engineer around the interference problem as well. https://www.laserfocusworld.com/home/article/16556322/lasers-for-lidar-fmcw-lidar-an-alternative-for-selfdriving-cars https://www.laserfocusworld.com/home/article/16556322/lasers...
- close04 7y ago> like asking how well cameras would work if 20 of them were looking at the same object. > Lidar sensors can interfere with each other Then it's not really like 20 cameras looking at the same object. Mostly due to the fact that cameras are passive observers and not really emitting much. And if they do, it's light and it won't really affect the others because they all benefit from it (within reason). I'm reasonably certain that such issues will still appear in productive use in the future but will get fixed at the time, not in labs today.
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoFair enough, I didn't really expand my comment enough to make my point and was about to delete it but now that someone replied I'll just leave it as is since I don't want to write a small essay. A good lidar sensor won't have issues with interference.
- close04 7y ago
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoAnyone have a LIDAR (or similar) product suggestion? I'm getting ready to start a hobby project that involves scanning the interior surfaces of a house. Ideally the accuracy would be at least 1/16" (1.5mm), including any scan-stitching required because the sensor had to be moved around. I've seen a few promising products, but none stands out as a perfect match.
- paol 7y agoIf you just want the result of the scan (not clear if the hobby project is the scanning itself or something else) you should be able to contract it as a service, or just rent the scanner. This is common for architectural scan work.
- briffle 7y agoA project I wanted to play with 10 years ago, and didn't have time or money, was a tool you could set in a room, and it would put laser 'dots' along the ceiling where crews should hang the parts for a drop ceiling, to minimize cuts of both hanger equipment, and the ceiling tiles.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoThat's closely related to what I'm going for. Ultimately I'm looking to make an A.R. system that guides various house remodeling tasks, including framing and floor-leveling.
- lnsru 7y ago1,5 mm accuracy isn’t doable that easily. There is company called Photoneo having structured light system with such advertised accuracy. But the scan volume is rather limited. Working on time-of-flight Stereo camera in my spare time. Few centimeter error is very normal. It was shocking at the beginning, but I now understand why bin picking is still hard task.
- baybal2 7y agomm wave radar + sar postprocessing? Given you have a 100% static scene, it should work great
- sanguy 7y agoNice to see Velodyne get some market pressure.
- hadlock 7y agoHow many moving parts does this have? What's the difference between solid state lidar, and "digital lidar"? I understand that there are 0 moving parts with solid state lidar.
- derek_frome 7y agoThis has a single moving part - a brushless motor that turns the turntable. It's rated for over 100,000 continuous hours of operation, and passes automotive shock and vibration standards. There's a good explanation in the post about what we mean by digital lidar, but the tl;dr version is we use silicon CMOS chips for lasers and detectors vs analog components like side emitting lasers and APDs used by legacy lidar providers. Solid state is a bit of a buzzword, and most "solid state" lidar sensors actually have small, delicate moving parts inside. Solid state sensors are aimed primarily at consumer vehicles, which are still many years away. The benefit is (at least in theory) easier integration into the vehicle fascia and (again, in theory) higher reliability vs legacy spinning lidar, which are quite unreliable in the real world. Ouster's digital lidar sensors are much more reliable than the legacy analog spinning lidar sensors, and much more compact - and therefore easier to integrate.
- las_balas_tres 7y agoWhatever happened to the solid state lidar sensor that osram was touting back in 2016 ?
- randyrand 7y agoOnly temperature rated to -4F degrees. I hope they can get that lower. Up to ~25 days a year are <0F in Chicago for instance.
- gpm 7y agoThat's just the device temperature right? If it's operating device temperature and not device storage temperature I think it's fine. -4f (-20c) is cold, the cabin of the car is heated to well above that. Just heat the lidar as well.
- apacala 7y agoThat's operating temp without external heater. Storage temp is lower. Even automotive cameras have built in heaters to allow them to operate lower than -20C. Nothing preventing adding the same functionality to our sensors.
- derek_frome 7y agoThis is the spec for a cold start. If you give it a warm start, you can operate it much lower than -20C! For instance, it's being used in underground mines in Scandinavia without issue.
- agoodthrowaway 7y agoThe issue will not be at cold but at high temperature. VCSELs have very poor efficiency at high temperature and it’s possible to operate them where increasing current reduces light output. In a vehicle application the temperatures are very high and humidity can also be very high and condensing.
- apacala 7y agoOuster CEO here. This couldn't be further from the truth. You can design the VCSEL cavity and top and bottom mirrors for peak efficiency at any temp, including very high temps. I wonder what we did... Compared to the side emitter diode lasers used in legacy spinning lidar, VCSELS are cheaper, more efficient, more reliable, longer life, and better quality light sources to boot.
- withinboredom 7y ago> Ouster’s engineers have paid to ensure every sensor stands up to the wear and tear IOW, no one is sure if it actually will
- derek_frome 7y agoWe do a tremendous amount of testing to ensure real-world reliability, and our customers' results bear that out. Full functional safety certification is slated for end of this year, which means it's already well underway. We make a point of this because legacy spinning lidar is unreliable. But it's unreliable because of the analog design, not because spinning is inherently unreliable.
- toxik 7y agoThis seems dubious to be honest. Moving parts break, simply due to mechanical wear at the very least. Gyroscopic forces for example from the spinning motion is less than ideal for drones. I realize a solid state lidar may be a very challenging prospect but it would be a huge selling point!
- agoodthrowaway 7y agoIf the device is reliable then you should quote a FIT number. A very good VCSEL based transceiver in an indoor environment has a FIT of about 100 at Tj~65C and a CI of 60%. If we assume your FIT rate is similar (it won’t be because your operating conditions are more difficult) and have 128 of these devices your FIT rate ~12800 (assuming independent failures). This puts your MTBF at around 8.9years. Some transceivers have a FIT rate of ~300FIT so if that’s the case your rel will only be 3 years.
- entangledqubit 7y agoDoes 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.
- agnokapathetic 7y agoI swear I get persistence of vision artifacts when I see a LIDAR equipped vehicle, but need to run a double blind test to be sure.
- Calloutman 7y agoProbably not. You can't see Ir Lasers.
- toxik 7y agoIR and UV radiation can very much ruin your sight.
- runin2k1 7y agoIt doesn't matter if it is IR, UV, or visible. Only the power and duration matter. Lidar uses very short pulses and very low power and is very safe even en masse.
- kyzyl 7y agoActually most pulsed lidar systems use pretty high peak powers, which result in an eye-safe average power only because they are on for a sequence of very short pulses (~1ns). It's pretty unlikely OP is actually experiencing vision problems due to lidars, but it's probably possible for some kind of weird interaction to happen in the eyeball due to the high power pulses. Even so, it's unlikely to be causing an damage, temporary or otherwise. I would hope it doesn't happen to him/her while driving or something, though.
- kensai 7y agoAm 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 other companies (since Tesla has no interest in it) are considering and further developing LIDAR.
- jiofih 7y agoAs far as I’m aware LIDAR cannot see though fog, as the light is dispersed, and even light rain might reduce range significantly. Tesla cars have radar which can see through any weather condition and detect transparent surfaces, invisible to LIDAR.
- holoduke 7y agoResolution of normal radar is much lower unless you have a gigant receiver. Also there is a significant delay of 10 to 100ms That's why a combination of lidar and radio radar is desired.
- usefulcat 7y ago> Also there is a significant delay of 10 to 100ms I'm curious why there is such an apparently long delay?
- kyzyl 7y agoIt 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 of variants of the standard radar hardware/methods, but I suspect that's what OP was referring to.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Ousterer 7y agoThe last rollout they did with the 32 channel version of the OS-1 had laughable firmware that output a data set consisting of half zeros. Do they still have the policy of "release now, make it work later?"