LIDAR for Autonomous System Design: Object Classification or Object Detection?

White Paper Overview

The promise of a fully autonomous tomorrow no longer seems like a pipe dream. Today, the questions around autonomy center on the underlying technologies and the advancements needed to make autonomy a reality. Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) has become one of the most discussed technologies supporting the shift to autonomous applications, but many questions remain. LIDAR systems with ranges greater than 100 m and 0.1° of angular resolution continue to dominate autonomous driving technology headlines. However, not all autonomous applications require this level of performance.

There are plenty of depth sensing technologies that enable these applications, such as radio detection and ranging (radar), stereo vision, ultrasonic detection and ranging, and LIDAR. However, each of these sensors has a unique trade-off between performance, form factor, and cost.

In this white paper, explore the design requirements for object detection and classification to help achieve a safe and cost-effective solution.