6 lidars?

[ZeApelido]

Found this lovely vehicle on the Peninsula. Obviously a startup, I got out and tried to ask them more, but they were secretive (claiming stealth mode) and would only verify lidar (duh). I'm assuming varying orientation x 6 is to improve SNR of mapping for testing. Thoughts?

 

[Tam]

...6...

Could it be that they can't afford one expensive Google-Style LIDAR so they get 6 cheaper ones instead?

 

[lunitiks]

Reminds me of this badboy

 

[Troy]

To me, it looks like with that many lidars, they could calculate the speed of other cars around them in all directions. That might be what they are trying to achieve here.

 

[lunitiks]

Could be the startling start of some smart taxi-service startup. They might be starting up by HD-mapping the start of the neighborhood, you know, for starters

 

[AnxietyRanger]

One reason for this may also be preparing for minituriaziation of LIDARs, I doubt the massive roof modules will persist in the long run - perhaps something more akin to Faraday Future prototype with smaller extending LIDARs or Audi "Elaine" prototype with multiple integrated (low front diffuser) LIDARs...

 

[gjunky]

They could just be testing lidars from different vendors at the same time although the placement is a bit weird.

 

[ZeApelido]

Seemed to all be velodyne

 

[Saghost]

Could be the startling start of some smart taxi-service startup. They might be starting up by HD-mapping the start of the neighborhood, you know, for starters

That's the direction I'm leaning - I can't imagine that they need 6 LIDAR turrets to guide the car, and they all look to be identical units, so the comparison option seems out - but by running a bunch of them in parallel, they can make a more complete HD map more quickly.

I wouldn't have guessed that any application needed that many, but the evidence suggests that someone thinks it's helpful to them...