North Branch Day painting launches the history of the smallest 32-line lidar, from mapping to autonomous driving and robotics field

September 23, the North Branch day painting Company in Zhongguancun Software Park held a product launch, launched two new LiDAR products, of which r-fans-32 is the history of the smallest 32-line LiDAR, C-rans is currently the highest number of local field laser radar.

R-fans is a navigation-based LiDAR developed by North Dakota for autonomous driving, intelligent robotics, unmanned mapping and SLAM applications. R-fans-16 and r-fans-32 have the characteristics of long distance, light weight and small size.

At the press conference, Zhang Zhiwu, chief executive of North Branch Day painting, introduced that r-fans-32 became the smallest 32-line lidar in history, because North Dakota painted a completely different overall design and technical route. For other brands of multi-line LiDAR products, how many line scanning line means the internal layer of the circuit board, each layer is divided into two circuit boards, a tube of laser emission, a tube of laser received. This means that the other brands of 32-wire products to the 64 circuit boards are listed, but also to ensure that each circuit board of the receiving, luminous angle and the precision of the installation position, this process is not only extremely time-consuming, and the size will certainly increase with the number of lines in the same proportion.

North Branch Day painting R-fans series of core components are highly integrated modules, due to a large number of semiconductor packaging technology, R-fans interior can not see the layers of the circuit board, will be set to adjust the time to reduce more than 90%, while effectively realizing the light of the product. The technical team of North Branch day painting not only has deep accumulation in optics, mechanics, electronics, measurement, signal, arithmetic, logic, software, but also has the experience of international semiconductor leader. The release of the 32-line LiDAR, the use of a large number of semiconductor technology, height of only 7cm, the weight of only 726 g, has become the smallest in history.

C-fans's field of view is 150ºⅹ15º, can be embedded in the body, such as the car's front and rear bumper, can make the LIDAR and the body integration. In front of the vehicle is the key area of obstacle avoidance, C-fans the number of scanned lines in the central 80º area of the 150º horizontal field of view to obtain higher recognition of the target. The maximum distance ranging at 20% of the target reflectivity is still more than 200m, the data update frequency up to up to a Hz. The 80-degree horizontal field of view of the C-fans's 64 laser scanning lines has been comparable to the current highest line number of commercial lidar. Without the bulky structure of a large flowerpot, a small mirror in the C-fans is its only moving mechanical mechanism.

Founded in 2005, the founding team is engaged in LIDAR research overseas and has been working in the field of laser three-dimensional imaging for nearly 20 years. Before 2015, North Branch day painting mainly for land survey, power patrol line, railway detection and other research and development mapping type LiDAR. In May 2016, North Branch day painting pioneered the launch of multi-line lidar in China, extending the customer base to unmanned and robotic fields.

CEO Zhang Zhiwu said at the press conference that the North Branch day painting Suzhou Plant was put into production in July, complementing the capacity of the Beijing headquarters. Laser radar products have been successfully exported to Italy, Russia, the United States, France and Singapore. Overseas orders accounted for more than 10% of the company's sales in 2017 and are expected to continue to grow in the coming years. "The principle of laser three-dimensional imaging is not complicated, so many start-ups are confident at first. With the advancement of product development, more and more pits will be found. LiDAR is a new type of sensor, a lot of components in the market can not buy, the need for enterprises to design and development, experience and technical accumulation is particularly important, but also need time to polish. 」

Asked whether the company would release more than 64 lines of LiDAR, Zhang Zhiwu said: "The discussion line number itself is not significant, the number of lines can be customized, will not become a competition threshold." The key is whether the technical route of the enterprise can support the real mass production and realize the extreme light, reliability and cheapness of the product. "At the same time, she revealed that the North Branch of the full-solid-state lidar is developing a 3D Flash path, will soon have the first prototype.