How to Tame the “Wild Horse” Automatic-driving? - Part 6

From the market point of view, there are two types of radars used in the field of automatic driving. One is millimeter wave radar, that is, the radar with the working frequency band in millimeter wave band (the frequency of vehicle radar is usually 76-81GHZ). The ranging principle is the same as that of general radar, that is, to send out radio waves (radar waves), then receive echoes, and measure the target position data according to the time difference between sending and receiving.

The other is lidar, which mainly detects the position, velocity and other characteristics of the target by emitting laser beam. Multiple laser transmitters and receivers are widely used in on-board lidar to establish a three-dimensional point cloud map. The more laser transmitter harnesses, the more cloud points collected per second, and the stronger detection performance is. By generating a huge 3D map, we can achieve the purpose of real-time environmental perception, and even know the lane boundary in advance. Besides, if there are stop signs or traffic lights 500 meters in front, the vehicle will also know the speed and direction of the cyclists or walkers.

However, lidar has always been plagued by price. More wire harnesses mean more expensive the cost of lidar. The price of 64 wire harness lidar is 10 times that of 16 wire harness. For example, the price of 64-bit lidar in Google driverless car is as high as more than 100 thousand US dollars, that is why smart cars with lidar are not applicable at present.