Lidar on Infrastructure |
for first-and-last mile feeders to the
high-capacity transportation system.”
At what price?
Any road authorities or public transit
operators reading this might
immediately start thinking about
future deployments… and how much
such advanced infrastructure might
cost. Systems suppliers already have
one eye on cost, too.
Lidar manufacturers are now
striving to reduce the price
of the technology, with the
specific aim of targeting the
potential new infrastructure
market. Pioneer, for
example, has recently set up
a new division to do just
this. It has already
succeeded in creating a lidar
sensor that can perform the job of
multi-beam lidar using a single laser
that can be reflected in multiple
directions almost instantaneously,
using a smart mirror.
“The cost of lidar is getting lower
and lower, but it is only at the early
stages,” says Haruhiko Takagi,
president and CEO of Pioneer Smart
Sensing Innovations Corporation. “It
is set to get even lower than it is now.
At Pioneer we are looking at ways to
make even better lidar, so we are
participating in many different
experiments around the world.
“One of our future customers will
be local government. We have already
done an experiment in Japan, where
our lidar was used on infrastructure.
Because with autonomous driving,
the vehicle can detect something, but
it has a very narrow field of vision.
With lidar on infrastructure you can
see around corners.”
Lidar Down Under
In Australia, a team from University
of Melbourne is also looking into the
possibilities of lidar on infrastructure
as part of Project Insight, which is
working to develop an intersection of
the future. The project is using the
live testbed known as AIMES
(Australian Integrated Multimodal
EcoSystem) – a living laboratory
on the streets of Melbourne,
established to test highly integrated
transport technology.
Project Insight is taking place
on a busy intersection between Elgin
and Nicholson
Street in Melbourne. “We chose this
intersection because it has all the
complexity that you could imagine in
a transport system in a dense urban
environment,” says Professor Majid
Sarvi, transport engineering lead,
University of Melbourne. “It has
trams, it has cars, city logistic trucks,
buses, bicycles, pedestrians and even
e-scooters, so it’s a very complex
environment. If you can put together
something here, you can guarantee
that your solution will work
everywhere else.”
“Project Insight is the first step in
developing a scalable solution that is
essentially a ‘pickup and drop-in’ or
‘lift and shift’ to intersections in any
city, or to another intersection down
the block,” says Daniel Hoyne,
program manager for AIMES,
University of Melbourne.
“We’re creating this linkage of
intersections that really
is, I believe, what the future
of connected automated
infrastructure will need
to look like – a really good
base layer.
“And once you have the base
layer you can get to the nuances –
We have already done an
experiment in Japan, where
our lidar was used on infrastructure. AVs
have a narrow field of vision. With lidar on
infrastructure you can see around corners
Haruhiko Takagi, president and CEO, Pioneer
Smart Sensing Innovations Corporation
Above: Haruhiko
Takagi points proudly
to the lidar sensor
deployed on a sign
for demonstration
purposes
Below: Professor
Majid Sarvi, of
the University of
Melbourne, working
on Project Insight
2,000 The estimated maximum
hours of life for
electromechanical lidar.
Solid state lidar lasts
100,000 hours
020 Traffic Technology International January/February 2020
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