With the increasing number of vehicles on the road, the need to improve the safety has also increased manifold. With this, the Government of India is continuously updating the mandates for the Automotive sector. The automotive segment has been transforming by developing and adapting newer technologies to improve the safety in vehicles to prevent collisions & accidents on the roads.

Developing Smart Vehicles, is no mean task. The more intelligent the vehicle gets; it also becomes that complex. There are a variety of new technologies which make the 4 wheelers nothing short of computer on wheels.

Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), are a family of safety systems that designed to work together to automate and enhance vehicle safety by alerting the driver to potential problems and avoid collisions. With front parking sensors, obstacles can be detected within 3 meters radius through ultra sound sensors, but to sense obstacles more than 3 meters a more advanced technology is needed.

The Government of India is working to mandate the ADAS in all cars by 2022. Newer cars may come equipped with RADAR, LiDAR, and ultrasonic sensors, in addition to the current features.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) based on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors are the most innovative and efficient technologies for autonomous vehicles. Along with Vision and RADAR based systems, LiDAR systems provide high accuracy, precision in object detection and recognition in ADAS.

LiDAR is a method for measuring distances (ranging) by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflection with a sensor. Differences in laser return times and wavelengths can then be used to make digital 3-D representations of the target.

According to the 2018 Infrared Sensing Application Market Report by LEDinside, LiDAR laser market value is expected to reach USD 154 million in 2020.

LiDAR sensor, if integrated with ADAS can provide real time condition of the surroundings of the driver, which will give the driver a heads up and avoid accidents. It helps in obstacle detection and avoidance to navigate safely through environments.

The working principals of LiDAR are:

• Laser pulses travel outward until contacting an object
• Upon contact, they reflect back to the Lidar system
• The lidar system receives & registers this echo pulse
• The system calculates the distance of the object, based on the laser pulse’s travel time to & from it.
• Time of flight technology works by illuminating a scene using modulated light and measuring the phase delay of the returning light after it has been reflected by the objects in the scene. The phase delay is then measured and converted to distance using a quadrature sampling technique. The advantages of this technology are high frame rate due to low computation required, a small footprint and a relatively low cost.

A number of manufacturers are developing solutions based on the LiDAR technology. These are going to change the game in the Automotive industry and improve the safety drastically.

Millennium Semiconductors is an authorised distributor of electronic components of 60+ suppliers & catering to various segments such as Automotive, Lighting, Consumer, Industrial, Power, Medical, IoT, Defence amongst others. Their R&D team works with their customers & suppliers to develop solutions and provides the best in-class services. Working on the latest technologies with the best in class suppliers, Millennium Semiconductors can provide LiDAR solutions of Melexis.

To know more about Millennium Semiconductors, check our website www.millenniumsemi.com