Explosive Growth Of Lidar Industry: WiMi Innovates Its Automatic Drive Tech

How hot is the lidar radar? Not only are more and more new models competing for configuration, but some models that were released earlier and did not planned to install lidar before, are also trying to keep up with the boom of “replacement” lidar. Car companies have also launched an “arms race” on the number of lidar assembled, from the initial one, to the conventional two to three, to the recent news that Xiaomi cars may be equipped with five lidar when it is launched.

Thanks to the rapid growth of the on-board lidar market, the names of lidar manufacturers such as Huawei and Luminar have also entered the public view and followed the fast track. Automotive technology has been improving in recent years, especially with the development of autonomous driving technology, with the help of lidar. With its help, the car collects the information on the road at the fastest speed, and uses the on-board chip processing to realize autonomous driving.

One of the key factors in the development of self-driving cars is on-board sensors, which enable the car to “see” the road and help it understand what’s happening around it. —— In most cases, this sensing capability is better than anyone can do.

Self-driving cars need to be able to identify people or things on their way, identify features of the road system, and constantly deal with various traffic problems and other challenges that users deal with on the road every day. To overcome these obstacles, self-driving cars require a range of technologies such as cameras, radar, lidar and infrared.

The LIDAR, the Light Detection and Ranging, can be found in almost every self-driving car that is tested. The lidar is designed to provide a complete 360-degree panoramic view, using laser pulses to visualize the vehicle’s surroundings in the form of a three-dimensional “point cloud”. The technology has been extremely successful in helping many OEMs into practice their ambitions in self-driving cars.

The LIDAR, the Light Detection and Ranging, can be found in almost every self-driving car that is tested. The lidar is designed to provide a complete 360-degree panoramic view, using laser pulses to visualize the vehicle’s surroundings in the form of a three-dimensional “point cloud”. The technology has been extremely successful in helping many OEMs into practice their ambitions in self-driving cars.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the rapid growth of the on-mounted lidar market is mainly due to several factors.

First, the accelerated penetration of autonomous driving has led to the rapid growth of the lidar market. According to IDC, the penetration rate of L2 autonomous driving passenger vehicles was 23.2 percent, up 7.5 percent year on year. Since last year, a number of models that can support L3-L4 class autonomous driving, including Mercedes-Benz and BMW, have been delivered. Mercedes-Benz is the first car company in the world to truly realize the mass production of L3 class autonomous driving in many countries and regions. These vehicles have accelerated the mass-production speed of the lidar to some extent.

Second, the various technical routes of lidar can meet the different needs of autonomous driving in different scenarios. At present, except for Tesla, other oems are actively deploying autonomous driving solutions with lidar as its main sensors. For example, low-speed closed scenarios such as ports and mines have high requirements on the cost and reliability of lidar, and the mirror rotating or MEMS schemes with high maturity can be given priority.

Third, the price of lidar is expected to drop due to various factors, and it may become a standard sensor for autonomous vehicles in the future. As more car companies cooperate with lidar manufacturers, the cost of lidar is expected to be further reduced under the scale effect, and the mass production of lidar is expected to be further accelerated in the future.

According to market research firm Allied Market Research, the global driverless technology market will reach $556.67 billion in 2026, achieving a compound annual growth rate of 39.47% compared with 2019.

As the key to the realization of high-level unmanned driving technology, the development prospect of lidar is also very promising. According to Frost & Sullivan, the global market for lidar will be us $13.54 billion in 2025. Across the world, China could be the fastest-growing market for lidar. By 2025, China’s lidar market size will reach 4.31 billion US dollars.

It is understood that in the face of such a broad market prospect, in many lidar related enterprises, WiMi Hologram Cloud (NASDAQ: WIMI) stands in the first echelon of technology. According to the data, WiMi’s technology is mainly concentrated in on-board AR holographic HUD, 3D holographic pulse LiD AR, head-mounted light field holographic equipment, holographic semiconductor, holographic cloud software, holographic vehicle navigation, universe holographic AR / VR equipment, universe holographic cloud software and other professional fields. Relying on the independent and complete core technology system, the extension of WiMi business involves intelligent driving (such as vehicle-road collaboration, autonomous driving, etc.) and digital twin (such as mapping and collection of high-precision maps).

According to the report, the leading WiMi of software and hardware technology strength support, the research and development of 3D holographic pulse laser radar to realize the road identification detection, dynamic and static obstacle detection, driving area detection, radar perception fusion such as perfect environment function, and through the “one-stop” service support, fu to automatic driving project implementation “point to point” whole scene environment perception, to achieve the large-scale application of laser radar in the market, help project authors efficiency, promote large-scale rapid form of autopilot project.

In addition, in order to further explore the field of intelligent driving and accumulate more rich experience, WiMi tries to unlock 3D visual perception technology and expand the application of AI vision in the automotive field. It can be said that technology giants like WiMi have entered the field of intelligent driving with their strong technical strength as well as the original accumulation formed in the original business, which has greatly contributed to the development of the industry and gained the attention and expectation of capital. In the medium and long term, the continuous technological innovation, the continuous pursuit of the ultimate enterprise core, as well as WiMi’s continuous innovation in technology, in the future or will become the leader in the field of intelligent driving.

On the whole, in the context of the high popularity of autonomous driving, both start-up players and big manufacturers have chosen to promote the mass production of lidar to accelerate the car, and they also have quite similarities in their realization path. Objectively, tech giants and start-ups have unique advantages and have their own directions.

Lidar is entering the scale boarding cycle, and the boarding effect is still receiving the market feedback, which also directly affects whether the lidar will quickly usher in a larger volume. In any case, 2023 is a crucial year for players in the lidar subdivision track, with players bound to stand out from the first wave of growth.