The world's thinnest automotive laser radar is here, 24mm, produced by Wanji

This April is the month of intensive product releases for automotive LiDAR .

On April 15, Sagitar released a new generation of LiDAR MX, claiming to lead LiDAR into the "thousand-yuan phone" era.

On April 19, Hesai also released a new laser radar ATX, and said: It is meaningless to go for low prices, Hesai chooses to go for technology.

On April 26, Wanji, a veteran domestic LiDAR player, launched the world's lightest and thinnest LiDAR WLR-760, demonstrating another momentum to the industry: LiDAR is not only about price, but also about technology.

01. The world's lightest and thinnest automotive lidar is here

On April 26, Vanji released three products at the Beijing Auto Show: the forward 144-line laser radar WLR-740 and 192-line laser radar WLR-760, and the pure solid-state blind spot laser radar WLR-750. Among them, the most eye-catching one is undoubtedly the WLR-760.

The height of WLR-760 is 24mm, which is equivalent to the diameter of a 1 yuan coin.

This is the thinnest automotive lidar product currently released in the world, combining compact size with powerful performance.

Dr. Hu Panpan, general manager of Wuhan Wanji, introduced that WLR-760 is about 1mm smaller than the diameter of a one-yuan coin. Although the optimization of 1mm thickness may not seem like much, it has brought the laser radar's transceiver efficiency to a new level.

Due to its small size and low power consumption , WLR-760 can be flexibly embedded in different locations of the vehicle body, including the roof, behind the front windshield, and integrated into the cockpit (the whole machine noise is less than 25 decibels), etc. This provides more possibilities for the installation of LiDAR, and will also greatly improve and optimize the beauty of the vehicle shape and driving wind resistance.

Although this lidar looks smaller and thinner, its core parameters such as maximum range and detection probability have not been reduced.

WLR-760 has a maximum measurement range of 300 meters, and can also achieve a distance of 200 meters on a 10% standard diffuse reflection surface, with a detection probability of over 90%.

Dr. Hu Panpan said that repeated scanning is used in the entire field of view, there is no overlapping field of view area, and there are 192 scanning line beams in the entire vertical field range.

According to Auto Heart, the 192 scanning beams are not evenly distributed, but adopt a structure with dense field of view in the middle and sparse field of view on both sides, which can maximize the use of each scanning beam.

From the on-site point cloud map, we can see that the point cloud utilization rate of the ROI area of ​​80° horizontally and 12.5° vertically is very high.

The innovation of WLR-760 lies in the use of a unique VCSEL+SPAD technology route. Compared with mainstream lidars on the market, its structure is simpler and more efficient.

This design not only makes WLR-760 more suitable for mass production, but also meets the automotive industry's needs for reducing costs and improving performance. According to Dr. Hu Panpan, VCSEL+SPAD brings three advantages:

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• First, the whole machine has a higher degree of integration, and the types of materials are reduced by 60% compared with the traditional rotating mirror solution; second, the number of materials in the whole machine is reduced by 80% compared with the traditional semi-solid rotating mirror solution; third, the increase in integration has further optimized and reduced the production process, and the reduction in production processes has reached 30%.

It is the scalability of the SPAD architecture that allows Wanji's LiDAR products to flexibly adapt to market demand and continue to evolve. In terms of product performance, it can achieve improvements in angular resolution, detection distance, and frame rate to meet higher technical standards.

Regarding price, which is of greatest concern to the automotive industry, Dr. Hu Panpan said that the cost of WLR-760 will be controlled within the range of 1,000-1,500 yuan as shipments increase after mass production, which can meet the strict cost control requirements of automakers.

Currently, Wanji has planned a LiDAR production capacity of 300,000 units per year in Shunyi, Beijing, and has the ability to mass-produce and deliver automotive-grade LiDARs on a large scale.

02. Who is Wanji? A veteran player in the field of LiDAR

In the field of LiDAR, Wanji has been deeply involved for many years and has accumulated profound experience. As early as 2011, Wanji began to develop LiDAR business, started comprehensive independent research and development, and emerged as a leader in the field of intelligent transportation. Wanji's LiDAR products are widely used in many fields such as intelligent transportation, industrial mobile robots and autonomous driving . Especially in the field of highway laser intermodulation and AMR laser navigation, Wanji has firmly taken the top spot in domestic market share. In the field of intelligent transportation, Wanji participated in the formulation of 11 of the most important national standards for vehicle-mounted LiDAR in China, "Performance Requirements and Test Methods for Vehicle-mounted LiDAR", and was also one of the first setters of the industry standard for roadside LiDAR in China.

This time at the Beijing Auto Show, Wanji also brought the car-road-cloud integrated intelligent driving solution, including the car-road-cloud integrated software architecture and the car-grade domain control of the car-road-cloud integrated.

Currently, this solution can realize 45 vehicle-road collaboration scenarios, covering 15 perception enhancements, 12 game enhancements, and 18 global optimal cognitions.

Enhanced perception: traffic light perception sharing, blind spot perception sharing, construction area perception sharing, accident area perception sharing;

Game enhancement: river game, left and right turn game at intersection, lane change in congestion, roundabout entrance and exit game, etc.

Global optimal cognition: global optimal route, global optimal lane, local map update, environmental hazard situation assessment, etc.

At the same time, Wanji is also exploring research based on driving role-playing, using the global information of the vehicle-road-cloud to finely classify driving behaviors in the entire scenario and formulate different game strategies based on the classification.

In terms of industrialization, Wanjie's vehicle-road-cloud integrated intelligent driving solution has been applied in many OEMs, smart cities, and demonstration zones, where Wanjie's lidar applications can be seen.

The expansion from intelligent transportation to the more segmented automotive field is an important step in Wanji's laser radar product strategy of "vehicle + road + industry". In 2011, Wanji took the lead in expanding laser radar technology from the military field to the industrial and civilian fields. In 2012, Wanji successfully launched the WLR-710 laser radar based on independent intellectual property rights, achieving a major breakthrough in laser radar technology from zero to one. The three automotive laser radar products unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show this year are the culmination of Wanji's many years of product and technology iteration, showing the outside world Wanji's R&D capabilities and technological innovation achievements.

03. LiDAR is now in use

In the past two years, LiDAR has been jumping between "common sense" and "anti-common sense". When the voice of "abandoning LiDAR" prevailed, the installation volume of LiDAR increased instead of decreased.

According to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association, the installed capacity of LiDAR in the domestic passenger car market surged 370% compared with the previous year to 740,000 units in 2023. At this year's Beijing Auto Show, more than 68 models were equipped with LiDAR.

On the other hand, according to data from the Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute, the installation rate of LiDAR in the new energy vehicle market with a price of more than 150,000 yuan has soared from 0.3% in 2021 to 10.4% in 2023.

This data is enough to show that the potential for LiDAR to be used in vehicles is far greater than the market imagines.

From the debate over "LiDAR fusion solution or pure vision solution" to the gradual formation of an industry consensus that "LiDAR is an invisible airbag", while car companies are seeking cost-effective solutions, their demand for LiDAR is growing. Therefore, for LiDAR companies, the next 3-5 years will be the golden age for LiDAR to be installed on cars. For Wanji, which has a deep accumulation of technology, this is undoubtedly a good time to show its skills. Dr. Hu Panpan believes that the current market structure of LiDAR has not yet been fully solidified, and is in a process of continuous transformation and iteration of technology and product forms. This provides Wanji with a rare opportunity to break in.

At the same time, new players continue to emerge.

Since March this year, companies such as DJI Automotive, Ecarx, and Benewake have successively released the latest lidar solutions or fixed-point projects.

This means that lidar is still in a fierce and diversified competitive landscape.

In order to stand out in this rapidly changing market, major manufacturers are actively seeking effective strategies to reduce the cost of LiDAR. Some players achieve the goal of reducing the cost of LiDAR by moderately sacrificing performance.

Other players are working hard to optimize the cost of lidar while maintaining unchanged performance.

Other players, such as LiDAR companies represented by Wanji, are committed to technological innovation, striving to effectively control costs while improving product performance. As automakers accelerate the process of urban NOA, LiDAR technology will become an indispensable part of the automotive industry. Wanji uses VCSEL+SPAD innovative technical solutions to improve performance while making the price of LiDAR more affordable.