Aeye Adaptive Scanning LiDAR Patents Granted

BusinessWire: AEye announces it has been awarded foundational patents for its solid state MEMS-based LiDAR. These include 71 claims covering AEye inventions ranging from an approach to dynamic scan and shot pattern for LiDAR transmissions to the ability to control and shape each laser pulse and methods for interrogating each voxel within a point cloud. These inventions are said to contribute significant performance improvements for the iDAR perception system: improving range by 400%; increasing speed by 20x; and boosting object classification accuracy while reducing laser interference.

"AEye's groundbreaking iDAR system is the first to use intelligent data capture to enable rapid perception and path planning,” said Elliot Garbus, former VP of Transportation Solutions at Intel. “Most LiDAR systems function at only 10Hz, while the human visual cortex processes at 27Hz. Autonomous vehicles need perception systems that work at least as fast as humans. iDAR is the first and only perception system to consistently deliver performance of at least 30-50Hz. Better quality information, faster. This is a game changer for the autonomous vehicle market.”

“Leveraging the inventions covered by our patents, we created the worlds first intelligent agile LiDAR – enabling us to interrogate a point cloud as individual voxels and control each one using multiple levers,” said Allan Steinhardt, Chief Scientist at AEye. “Traditional systems only adapt on frame size or placement. In addition to frame size and placement, Agile LiDAR – a core feature of the iDAR perception system – allows us to dynamically control frame pattern, pulse tuning, pulse shaping, pulse energy and other critical dimensions that enable embedded AI.”

AEye’s first iDAR-based product, the AE100 artificial perception system, will be available this summer to OEMs and Tier 1s launching autonomous vehicle initiatives.

The granted patents are probably US9885778 and US9897689 proposing the adaptive scanning so that the laser energy is spent in a more economical way only on "interesting spots", for the most part: