Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

Lidar is a kind of sensor that can accurately detect the position of an object. By emitting a laser signal to the target, the distance is calculated according to the time difference of the signal reflected from the object, and then the angle between the object and the emitter is determined at the angle of the laser, thus the relative position between the object and the emitter is obtained.

With the increasing demand for lidar, more and more domestic enterprises have joined the research and development of lidar technology. after the development in recent years, many excellent lidar enterprises have risen and gradually become the leaders in the lidar industry.

Domestic lidar output from 2017 to 2019

Proportion of lidar area supply area in 2019

It is understood that at present, in the research direction of lidar, most enterprises are mainly in the fields of robots, unmanned vehicles, and unmanned aircraft. in terms of price, lidar in the field of unmanned driving ranges from tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan, which is generally higher than the price of lidar in the fields of robots and AGV.

The market prospect of single-line lidar is broader.

At present, according to the different number of lidar lines, lidar can be divided into single-line lidar and multi-line lidar. Compared with multi-line lidar, single-line lidar has a broader market prospect.

Single-line lidar means that the beam emitted by the laser source is a single-line radar. at present, it is mainly used in the field of robots, mostly service robots, which can help robots avoid obstacles, and has high scanning speed, strong resolution and high reliability. Compared with multi-line lidar, single-line lidar responds more quickly in angular frequency and sensitivity, so it is more accurate in measuring the distance and accuracy of surrounding obstacles. However, single-line radar can only scan in plane and can not measure the height of objects. at present, it is mainly used in our common sweeping robot, food delivery robot, welcome robot, shopping guide robot, medical assistant and hotel and other service robots.

However, multi-line lidar is mainly used in self-driving applications. In the field of self-driving, multi-line lidar can scan the 3D model of the environment around the car, and use relevant algorithms to compare the changes of the environment in the previous frame and the next frame. It can easily detect the surrounding vehicles and pedestrians. By comparing the real-time global map with the features in the high-precision map, the positioning accuracy of the vehicle can be enhanced and autonomous navigation can be realized.

Relatively speaking, multi-line lidar requires higher performance. Compared with foreign countries, there is a large gap in domestic technology in multi-line lidar. At present, mature 3D lidar products that can be used in ADAS and unmanned systems have not been developed. However, it has been relatively mature in the fields of robot, AGV, terrain mapping and so on. At present, it has achieved mature landing in a large area.

The field of service robot is the main "foothold" of single-line lidar

With the rapid development of China's robot market and the increasing maturity of the robot and its core parts industry chain, the demand potential of service robots is huge, and the market is constantly expanding.

According to the statistics of the China Electronic Society, the scale of China's service robot market has increased year by year from 2014 to 2018. In 2018, China's service robot market reached 1.65 billion US dollars, an increase of 30.1% over the same period last year. The market size of service robots in China in 2019 is about 2.2 billion US dollars.

At the same time, the market scale of domestic service robot, medical service robot and public service robot in China is 1.05 billion US dollars, 620 million US dollars and 530 million US dollars respectively, accounting for 47.7%, 28.2% and 24.1% respectively.

With the decrease of the number of working-age workers and the increase of labor costs in China, the trend of using robots to replace low-end labor force in various industries is becoming more and more significant. Therefore, the accelerated adjustment of China's labor force structure will further drive the application demand of public service robot market.

In recent years, the vigorous development of the service robot has also driven the market demand of the lidar. Because the working scene of the service robot is more complex, it has higher requirements for the walking ability of the service robot. It is necessary for the robot to walk independently even in the case of unmanned control to avoid collision, loss and other behaviors.

This needs to involve intelligent sensing devices. Some industry experts have said that all intelligent devices in the future will need to use lidar when they involve perception, and service robots are no exception. As the core sensor to realize robot intelligent walking, lidar can assist robots to complete autonomous map construction, accurate positioning and autonomous navigation, compared with visual sensors. Lidar sensor has the advantages of high stability and strong reliability, so lidar is considered to be the "discerning eye" of service robot.

Of course, lidar alone does not mean that the robot can move on its own. The lidar robot can constantly scan to obtain the lattice data in two-dimensional space, but this can not be directly used by the mobile robot. It is obviously not so easy for the mobile robot to realize intelligent navigation in a completely unfamiliar environment (without pre-entering a map). When we are in a strange environment, we can see everything around us through our eyes, but if we want to get to another strange place, we need to judge the best way to get to the destination and avoid obstacles in order to reach the designated place smoothly. Therefore, it is not enough to use lidar to help the robot "see" the surrounding environment, but also need to combine the SLAM algorithm to do the follow-up map construction and path planning.

Current situation of single-line lidar in China

In the field of single-line lidar technology, Silan Technology is the most representative enterprise in China. Silan Technology has been committed to the research and development of robot autonomous positioning and navigation technology and core sensors (lidar) since 2009. After years of efforts and continuous innovation, Silan science and technology has made remarkable achievements in the field of lidar, basically realizing the replacement of imported lidar, and reducing the price of lidar to the level of 100 to 1000 yuan. so that domestic service robot enterprises no longer completely rely on imported lidar.

Today, Silan Technology has launched a number of lidar products, from RPLIDAR A1, A2, A3, to RPLIDAR S1, and then to the later SLAMTEC Mapper lidar. Silan Technology has achieved a great-leap-forward upgrade. For RPLIDAR A3 and SLAMTEC Mapper, RPLIDAR A3 is a triangulation ranging radar. Because of its own principle, the trigonometric ranging lidar once thought in the industry is difficult to break through the ranging limitation of 20 meters, and the sampling rate cannot break through tens of thousands of times. However, the emergence of RPLIDAR A3 has completely rewritten this situation, realizing a practical ranging distance of 25 meters, and the sampling frequency can reach 16000 times per second, refreshing the industry standard for triangulation lidar.

In addition to the RPLDIAR A3 lidar, Silan Technology's SLAMTEC Mapper lidar is also the industry's first new lidar category that integrates real-time map construction and positioning, which can directly output high-quality map data and positioning coordinate information without any external dependence. According to netizens' evaluation, in terms of anti-interference, whether SLAMTEC Mapper is shaking or jogging, it can not affect its mapping effect.

Nowadays, most of the service robots such as floor sweeping robot, restaurant robot, hotel robot and bank robot use the lidar of Silan technology, and the SLAM technology based on lidar is considered to be the most stable and reliable robot positioning and navigation solution in the industry. First, take the floor-sweeping robot, for example, with lidar with SLAM algorithm, the floor-sweeping robot can independently achieve intelligent cleaning in the room, whether it is a complex narrow room or a large household of hundreds of square meters, the floor-sweeping robot can deal with it calmly, intelligently partition the map, independently plan the bow-shaped zone cleaning, and achieve very high sweeping coverage area.

For the food delivery robot, the laser SLAM navigation scheme based on the lidar as the core sensor can work stably and permanently in a complex environment. Even in the peak period of crowded dining, the robot can quickly judge the restaurant environment, flexibly avoid customers walking back and forth, and quickly re-plan the running path to ensure the "safety" of dishes.

In the field of hotel service robot, it can not only take the initiative to greet the greetings, but also lead guests to check-in rooms, not to mention goods delivery and elevator switch. the hotel service robot can complete hundreds of tasks every day to achieve uninterrupted work.

Of course, in addition to the above service robots, there are many robots based on lidar SLAM positioning and navigation scheme in our daily life, which can automatically build maps, accurate positioning and autonomous navigation, and achieve intelligent walking.

This article comes from: http://www.slamtec.com/cn/News/Detail/441

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