This Palm-Sized Laser Could Make Self-Driving Cars Way Cheaper

Velodyne’s Lidar “Puck” costs just $7,999 and could make self-driving cars cheaper. Velodyne Lidar, Inc.

We don’t know how much self-driving cars will cost when they finally hit the market, but our best guess is, a lot. The technology needed to take the wheel out of your hands is frightfully expensive. Now, we can revise that estimate down a bit with the debut of a laser system that’s roughly the size and shape of a hockey puck and costs just eight grand.

Silicon Valley-based Velodyne Acoustics makes sound systems and a self-stabilizing boat said to prevent seasickness, but its most high profile product is the Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) system spinning proudly atop each of Google’s self-driving cars. The device uses 64 lasers to map the physical the world. It can collect more than a million data points about its surroundings every second, crucial information for autonomous automobiles. It’s remarkably cool, and remarkably expensive: Each unit costs up to $85,000, far too pricey to be used in vehicles the rest of us might one day buy.

Which brings us to the Puck, Velodyne’s miniaturized version of that technology. Instead of 64 lasers, it has just 16, resulting in a tenfold reduction in price. It’s also smaller, just 4 inches tall and 1.3 pounds—compared to 10 inches tall and 29 pounds for the unit on each of Google’s robocars. At $7,999, it’s small and cheap enough for mass-market vehicles, a big help for automakers intent on offering cars that drive themselves in the next decade.

There are downsides to going from 64 lasers to 16. The Puck’s smaller size limits how much it can see, with a vertical field of view that drops from ±26.8° in the 64-channel version to ±15° (both offer 360° horizontal views). It delivers lower resolution and fewer data points, just 300,000 per second instead of the 1.3 million provided by the 64-channel unit.

“It’s really light; it’s really small; it doesn’t take a lot electricity.”

Those tradeoffs are worthwhile when you consider the reduced cost, says Wolfgang Juchmann, Velodyne’s head of sales and marketing. The 64-channel unit costs up to $85,000, while a 32-channel version roughly the size of a soda can runs $30,000 to $40,000. Automakers and tech juggernauts can easily afford that when they need a few for research, but such prices are prohibitive for use on consumer vehicles. “It’s more than double the price of the car,” Juchmann says. Eight grand is still a lot, but easier to get away with.

The reduced size is good news for automotive design. Google happily, even proudly, sticks the 64-channel unit on top of its self-driving Lexus SUVs, but automakers favor a more subtle approach to introducing autonomous driving. Slapping a spinning gizmo that resembles a police light on the roof of a car would make any designer cringe, and it makes the car look more like a science experiment than a personal vehicle.

The 64-laser LIDAR unit on the Google self-driving car is pretty noticeable. Ariel Zambelich/WIRED

The Puck is a much less obtrusive piece of hardware more easily integrated into the vehicle, perhaps into the mirrors. “It’s really light; it’s really small; it doesn’t take a lot electricity,” Juchmann says. Thanks to the lower price, he said, automakers could put two or three on any given vehicle to make up for the reduced field of vision. (Though that would soon approach the cost of the 32-channel unit.) And while Google will likely stick with the 64-laser unit while its car is in development, Juchmann says that the 16-laser Puck provides an adequately detailed view of the world.

Velodyne has Lidar customers beyond Google and the auto industry. Nokia uses the system to collect data for mapmaking. The geomatics company Lidar USA wants to use the Puck in the ScanLook Snoopy, a mobile mapping system that can be fitted to small UAVs. Velodyne also is interested in the market for automated vehicles that move around warehouses.

No word yet on whether the company will consider making an even smaller, 8-laser unit, and 16 is about as low as you can go for use in an automated car, Juchmann says. The longterm goal is to offer a unit for $1,000, something the company believes it can do with increased automation (lasers on the 64-channel unit are often installed by hand) and economies of scale. With the more affordable Puck, Juchmann says, “we can now go into thousands of units, maybe tens of thousands.”