Lyon, France. According to Yole Développement, the global lidar systems market for automotive applications will show impressive growth between 2017 and 2023—from $726 million to $5 billion, achieving a huge 43% CAGR during this period. In addition, the growth should continue until 2032 with a $28 billion market value for the automotive market segment alone. Today, lidars and new applications are developing simultaneously. Thus, the lidar market is directly linked to the development of ADAS solutions and robotic vehicles. Both domains show high growth rates and tremendous enthusiasm. Yole’s analysts also see opportunities for lidar in diverse industries such as aerospace, archaeology, construction, and wind farms.
The Yole Group of companies including Yole and Knowmade provide comprehensive analysis of the lidar market with two dedicated reports. Analysts combine their expertise and their knowledge of the different industries to understand the technical challenges and identify market issues.
In Lidars For Automotive & Industrial Applications, Yole presents the market evolution in volume and in value, from system to components. It also details a deep understanding of the potential business opportunities for each player, on each part of the supply chain.
In addition, Knowmade publishes a relevant report describing the LiDAR IP landscape for automotive applications: Lidar for Automotive Patent Landscape. Knowmade’s IP analysts highlight the latest IP trends, as well as the current legal status. They also provide a comprehensive review of the main patent assignees with thier rankings. According to Knowmade, through January 2017, more than 30,000 inventions related to lidar have been published worldwide. In its report, Knowmade has so selected and investigated the 6,480+ inventions related to automotive applications.
“In the past two years, more than US$800 million has been invested in LiDAR companies,” announces Alexis Debray, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole. “Therefore, there is clearly a strong excitement around these technologies.”
But is it a dream? Or could we think about a real market potential? Some companies, despite being created only a few years ago, have received millions in investments. For example, Blackmore, founded in 2016, recently received $18 million from BMW and Toyota. And Quanergy, launched in 2012, received $180 million in 2017. Such investments testify to LiDAR technologies’ immaturity. Start-ups, industrial players, tier 1s, and automotive OEMs are all investing in different approaches with no guarantee of success—but this is the price they must pay for a chance to be part of the automotive grade market for lidar technologies, seen by many as the Holy Grail.
On the technology side, diversity is the key word. Therefore, the range of offers is equally impressive. Most current products, such as those proposed by Velodyne, use a macro-mechanical scanning of laser beams at wavelengths between 830 and 940 nm. However, MEMS scanners are expected to be the next evolution of automotive LiDAR, promising to be smaller and cheaper. The next step after this should be the optical phased-array, as proposed by Quanergy, in which no moving part is present—thus becoming even cheaper, smaller, and safer. This technology stems from optical fiber communications. Some players like Continental and Xenomatix propose flash lidar, in which the whole scene is illuminated simultaneously with no moving part. Other players propose different solutions: Cepton and Luminar have revealed mechanical scanning technologies, while Neptec employs Risley prisms. Although many players use a wavelength from 830 to 940 nm because corresponding optical components are more widespread, some are investigating the 1,550-nm wavelength for which a higher laser power can be used, because the laser maximum’s permissible exposure is roughly 100x higher and also because dust robustness is better. These players include Blackmore, Neptec, Aeye, and Luminar.
And the diversity continues, with most lidar development companies using a direct lidar type called pulse lidar, in which a pulse of light is sent to the target; the time it takes to return to the photodetector confirms the distance. A few companies are investigating continuous-wave ranging methods which allow for heterodyne detection, and therefore much higher sensitivity. IFM and Benewake are investigating the phase-shift ranging method, while Blackmore and Oryx are investigating the frequency-modulation-ranging method.
“The IP landscape is dominated by tier 1s, and automotive OEMs, players that have contributed to the development of lidar for ADAS applications (parking assistance, anti-collision alarms, etc.),” explained Dr. Paul Leclaire, IP analyst at Knowmade. “Among the top five patent assignees, four are Japanese, including Denso, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Toyota. Main Japanese players are automotive manufacturers.” Today, these historical IP players are being more and more challenged by multinational group that cover many domains such as electronic, materials, embedded system, etc. and startups.
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