Description:
Market Opportunity
Demand for autonomous vehicles is expected to reach 29 million units by 2035. High-resolution detection and ranging technologies, such as LiDAR, are used in autonomous vehicles for remote sensing. Using LiDAR to create, steer, and detect high-resolution optical beams in free-space allows capturing real time 3D data for a diverse range of applications, including mapping and autonomous driving.
Optical beam steering in LiDAR is achieved mechanically through rotating or tilting mirrors that reflect the light towards different directions. LiDAR systems have thus major limitations such as a large form factor, slow scan speed and high power consumption. New solid state light steering solutions have been developed, but these have limited steering angles and reduced efficiencies.
USC Solution
USC researchers have created a new technology that enables large-scale optical phased arrays based on novel nanophotonic devices to be used for enhanced LiDAR applications. These arrays have an equivalent sweeping range to current state-of-the-art technologies, and thanks to the absence of moving mechanical parts, are also more reliable and more compact.
Value Proposition
- Compact form factor
- High resolution sensing
- Large scanning angle and range
- Low power consumption
- Less prone to wear and tear
- Compatible with commercial semiconductor processes
Applications
- Sensing and ranging
- LiDAR
- ADAS
Publications
A 1024-element scalable optical phased array in 0.18µm SOI CMOS, ISSCC 2017
Stage of Development
- Experimentally validated
- Available for exclusive and non-exclusive license