Automotive lidar technology is rapidly changing

‘If you blink you’ll miss it’. Innovation in automotive lidar is moving quickly, as can be seen back in 2018, lidar players were so focused on their own technology and incremental enhancements, that they missed a transformative technical change due to new technology.

A lower cost solution emerged, solid state lidar which was pursued by young companies such as Quanergy and Luminar. Will you be blindsided or prosper?

Lidar innovation is constantly evolving and changing. New technologies and players are entering the space around the globe, so keeping up with these trends is key.

Global Prior Art, using Cipher classified patent data has found the following:

• The big players, such as Bosch and Ouster, are shifting their innovation focus in key areas – so who are the new entrants and what are the hot areas of innovation?
• Velodyne – the core lidar vendor has changed its focus – from rotating lidar platforms to rotating mirror components.
• Chinese companies have ramped up patent filings covering recent lidar technology developments

Bruce Rubinger, CEO of GPA says:

“We have been working with innovators in lidar and they are genuinely excited about the pace of change in this industry and concerned about being able to follow the complex technology and IP space. That is why we have proposed a vigorous study to provide accurate and transparent information and insight to participants”.

The corporate landscape is also changing and small innovators are being snapped up by bigger players, investors, and suppliers.

With over 200 companies, and growing, identifying and owning strategic innovations in rotating lidar technology, MEMS mirror-based lidar, and flash lidar, the marketplace is busy.

Stewart Hogg, COO at Cipher says:

“Using classified patent data to identify new innovation and new owners of that innovation in the lidar space plus the in depth knowledge of GPA will give OEMs, Automotive players, investors and governments the true picture of who is doing what.”

Global Prior Art & Cipher are partnering together to leverage their combined deep technological expertise and machine learning capabilities to breakdown, analyse and monitor current and future transformational technologies.

Fact driven insights into complex IP spaces and interaction with the team will yield a competitive edge, facilitating proactive strategies to capture the future. The benefits will be illustrated by the deep insights and analysis delivered by this joint GPA / Cipher effort.

We are looking forward to further findings from our analysis of this fast changing space. What will this all mean for the consumer?

View a summary and download the report

About Global Prior Art Inc

GPA is widely recognised for its deep technology expertise, a diligent process referenced by the PTAB, analysts with access to proprietary databases and foreign language databases, as well as experience leveraging the power of the Cipher tool. This paired with their technical backgrounds enables transformational technology services.

About Cipher

Our mission is to unleash the strategic value of patents for our customers. We do this by enabling patent owners to make rational decisions by providing strategic patent intelligence, powered by machine learning. By using your view of the key technologies, Cipher is able to design and build your custom taxonomy.

For further information contact: francecsa.levoir@cipher.ai