HONG KONG, May 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tailor Insight, the fintech market research organization, recently released a research report "WIMI Stands Out with Its Own Lidar Products When the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Breaks Out". "Equipped with advanced sensors" has become an important label for smart cars. Sensors are the hardware basis for the car to perceive the surrounding environment and are indispensable in all stages of automatic driving.
Intuitively speaking, intelligent driving is to analogize human driving, using technology and equipment to assist or even replace driving. Use sensors such as cameras and radars to perceive the driving environment; use algorithm chips to implement driving decisions, and gradually allow artificial intelligence to replace the driver's decision-making function; use the control execution system to control the driving of the car, and finally, the driver's eyes, hands, feet, and mind are completely liberated from driving.
Smart car is a comprehensive system that integrates environmental perception, planning and decision-making, and multi-level assisted driving. It uses computers, modern sensing, information fusion, communications, artificial intelligence, and automatic control technologies. Primary smart cars mainly use advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which is a collection of a series of driver assistance systems for the purpose of improving driving safety and comfort. Driverless cars also belong to the category of smart cars. They can sense road conditions through smart sensor systems, rely on computer systems to make autonomous planning decisions, and complete predetermined driving goals.
As one of the important sensor technologies, Lidar has broken the situation that it was only used in the military field, and it has developed rapidly in the civil and commercial fields. In recent years, it has become outstanding in the field of autonomous driving.
For the selection of autonomous driving sensors, there are two major technical schools in the market: one is dominated by cameras, combined with low-cost components such as millimeter-wave radars to form a pure visual computing solution; the other is dominated by lidar, combined with cameras and millimeters wave radar, and other components to form a "Lidar Autopilot Program". The representative of the former technical genre is Tesla, and the typical representative of the latter is Google Waymo. "Whoever relies on lidar will be over." Tesla CEO Musk once criticized lidar-based autonomous driving solutions.
If auto companies follow the research and development direction of Tesla's visual perception, it will be difficult to form effective competitiveness in the short term. The research and development of visual perception require the collection of massive driving data and a large number of simulation experiments, the establishment of a visual semantic database, and the recognition of various objects after machine learning. Due to the peculiarities of China's road conditions, Tesla's autonomous driving has also become "unacceptable". However, as time went by, the choices of car companies almost all stand on the opposite side of Musk.
Autonomous driving spawns hundreds of billions of new blue oceans in the lidar field
Lidar is composed of three parts: transmitting system, receiving system, and information processing. Its working principle is to send a detection signal (laser beam) to the target detection object, and then compare the signal (target echo) emitted by the target with the transmitted signal. After proper processing, the relevant information of the target can be obtained, such as the target's distance, azimuth, height, speed, posture, and even shape parameters, to detect, track, and identify the target.
As early as the 1960s, lidar was mainly used in scientific research, as well as surveying and mapping projects, and only began to be used in autonomous vehicle projects after the 2000s. At present, lidar has gradually been commercialized in areas such as unmanned driving, advanced driver assistance systems, and robotics. It is reported that the laser radar used in the world's first car is a 64-line laser radar produced by Velodyne in the United States, which debuted in the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005.
As high-level autonomous driving has increasingly urgent requirements for sensing technology, and lidar can significantly promote the landing of L3 plus autonomous driving. Thus, lidar has gradually become the darling of autonomous driving.
The intelligent driving market has broad prospects. According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, the market size of China's smart driving industry reached 122.6 billion yuan in 2019, and it is expected that the market size will continue to grow at an annual growth rate of more than 30%.
Lidar is the key to the realization of unmanned driving technology. According to Sullivan's statistics and predictions, it is driven by the expansion of the unmanned fleet, the increase in the penetration rate of Lidar in ADAS, as well as the increasing needs in the fields of service robots and the construction of intelligent transportation. The lidar market is expected to show a rapid development trend, with global market size of $13.54 billion in 2025, and a compound growth rate of 64.5% is expected from 2019 to 2025.
From the perspective of the composition of the global lidar market, the Internet of Vehicles is the main application market for lidar in 2019, accounting for about 60%. Sullivan predicts that by 2025, Robotaxi/Robotruck, ADAS, and Internet of Vehicles will share almost the lidar market, accounting for 26%, 34%, and 35%, respectively. The main reason is the continuous expansion of the Robotaxi/Robotruck market, the continuous application of laser driving in the ADAS field, and the rising demand for intelligent transportation.
Perception fusion and algorithm planning are the soul of intelligent driving and determine the degree of intelligence of the system. Perception fusion is divided into pre-fusion and post-fusion. Pre-fusion refers to the fusion of heterogeneous data such as cameras and radars and then transmits it to the decision-making layer. Post-fusion refers to the comprehensive analysis after the detection and perception results are handed over to the decision-making layer. The decision-making layer makes decisions and path planning through algorithms. The bottom-level control part mainly refers to the actuator, which involves more traditional automotive technology.
As a holographic AR company listed on NASDAQ, WIMI Hologram Cloud has once again attracted the attention of the public. WIMI utilizes its strong technical capabilities and infrastructure to provide excellent products and services. WIMI has won the bid for China Mobile and the second phase of the holographic remote interaction of the media cloud platform, and it is redefining China Mobile's communication method through "5G + holographic remote". Its core business is holographic AR technology for software engineering, media manufacturing services, cloud, and big data.
WIMI also seems to be catching up closely in the field of lidar. Since the announcement of the patent of the 3D holographic pulse laser processing device for optical holography, many industry application customers have shown strong market demand. Therefore, WIMI decided to develop 3D holographic pulse lidar products "WIMI HoloPulse LiDAR" to further expand the company's holographic product portfolio matrix.
WIMI Hologram Cloud owns core intellectual property rights and is not restricted by overseas companies. WIMI owns about 4654 AR holographic contents, 106 software copyrights, and 219 technical patents. Moreover, it is committed to using holographic technology to meet the entertainment and business needs of customers and end-users.
According to some public information, WIMI focuses on holographic cloud services, mainly in vehicle-mounted AR holographic HUD, 3D holographic pulse LiDAR, head-mounted light field holographic equipment, holographic semiconductor, holographic cloud software, holographic car navigation, and other professional fields, covering multiple links of AR technology, including holographic vehicle-mounted AR technology, 3D holographic pulse LiDAR technology, holographic vision semiconductor technology, holographic software development, holographic AR advertising technology, holographic AR entertainment technology, holographic ARSDK payment, interactive holographic communication, and so on. It is a holographic cloud comprehensive technical solution provider.
Due to the explosion of demand for automotive holographic applications, WIMI will develop solutions such as holographic in-vehicle equipment, holographic in-vehicle chips, and holographic in-vehicle software to meet the needs of automotive holographic applications. WIMI is committed to in-vehicle holographic software and hardware integration solutions, and it will develop more holographic AR patents and products suitable for the automotive industry to establish more customer relationships.
According to Sullivan's statistics and forecasts, the global lidar market will be worth $13.54 billion in 2025, and the Chinese lidar market will grow to $4.31 billion. Southwest Securities pointed out that China's automotive-grade lidar will maintain a rapid growth trend, and autonomous driving will usher in rapid development.
As the level of autonomous driving and market penetration increase, lidar technology becomes more mature, and its cost price will also be reduced, and the penetration rate of lidar in mass-produced vehicles will continue to increase. In the second half of the lidar competition, AI vision companies such as WIMI Hologram Cloud have made sufficient preparations.
About Tailor Insight
Tailor Insight provides easy and quick solutions that allow customers to capture, monitor, and audit market data from a holistic view down to an individual task on market research and industry trend insights. For more information, please visit http://www.TailorInsight.com
Media contact
Alex Xie, Senior Analyst
Fintech Research Team, Tailor Insight Research
info@TailorInsight.com