As an important part of the future transportation, unmanned vehicles are gradually moving towards reality. With the continuous advancement of technology, self-driving cars are no longer a scene in science fiction movies, but a cutting-edge achievement of modern technological development. In this process, laser radar (LiDAR) technology plays an irreplaceable key role. As the “eyes” of unmanned vehicles, LiDAR provides high-precision three-dimensional environment sensing data, which provides a solid technical guarantee for the autonomous decision-making and safe driving of vehicles. In this paper, we will discuss the key role of laser radar in unmanned vehicles and its future development prospects.

Working Principle and Characteristics of Laser Radar
Laser radar by transmitting laser pulses and receiving its reflected signal to measure the distance between the object and the sensor, thus generating a high-resolution three-dimensional point cloud of the environment. This technology enables unmanned vehicles to “see” their surroundings, including roads, vehicles, pedestrians, obstacles, etc., and accurately determine their locations, shapes, and states of motion.

The main features of laser radar include:

High accuracy and resolution: Laser radar can provide centimeter-level measurement accuracy and high-resolution environmental data to help unmanned vehicles accurately identify surrounding objects and make safe driving decisions.
Wide Field of View and Omni-directional Sensing: Laser radar usually has 360-degree omni-directional sensing capability, which can monitor all directions around the vehicle in real time, ensuring no blind spots in complex traffic environments.
All-weather capability: Radar does not depend on light conditions, and can work stably during daytime, nighttime, and in bad weather, enabling unmanned vehicles to cope with changing environments.
Application of Laser Radar in Unmanned Vehicles
Laser radar plays a vital role in unmanned vehicles, which is mainly realized in the following aspects:

Environmental awareness and map construction: Laser radar generates high-precision three-dimensional maps by scanning the environment around the vehicle. These maps not only include road information, but also cover details such as other vehicles on the road, pedestrians, obstacles and signs. The real-time generated maps provide detailed environmental information for the unmanned vehicles, enabling them to accurately locate and identify obstacles and carry out route planning.

Obstacle detection and collision prevention: The laser radar can detect obstacles around the vehicle in real time, and by analyzing the trajectory of these obstacles, it can predict the risk of collision. Relying on the data provided by radar, unmanned vehicles can react quickly to dangerous situations before they occur, such as braking, steering or slowing down, thus avoiding accidents.

Path planning and autonomous driving: The environmental data generated by radar is not only used for obstacle detection, but also supports the path planning of unmanned vehicles. By analyzing real-time updated three-dimensional maps, the car is able to plan optimal routes and make intelligent decisions in complex traffic scenarios. For example, on urban roads, the unmanned vehicle can determine the movement trajectories of pedestrians and other vehicles based on laser radar data, and flexibly adjust its driving strategy to ensure safe driving.

Multi-sensor fusion and redundant design: Unmanned vehicles are usually equipped with multiple sensors, such as cameras, millimeter-wave radar and ultrasonic sensors. Laser radar plays a central role by fusing data with other sensors to improve the accuracy and robustness of environmental sensing. In addition, laser radar provides a redundant design for the system. When other sensors fail or the complexity of the environment increases, laser radar can still provide reliable data support to protect the safe driving of vehicles.

The Development Prospect of Laser Radar in Unmanned Vehicles
As the unmanned driving technology continues to mature, the application of laser radar is also expanding rapidly. In the future, the development prospect of laser radar in unmanned vehicles is mainly realized in the following aspects:

Technological advancement and cost reduction: Despite its superior sensing capability, the high cost of laser radar has been an obstacle to the large-scale application of unmanned vehicles. As technology continues to advance and market demand increases, the production cost of laser radar is gradually decreasing. In particular, the development and application of solid-state laser radar will further reduce the cost of equipment and enhance its durability and reliability, laying the foundation for the popularization of driverless cars.

Miniaturization and integration: In the future, laser radar equipment will be more miniaturized and integrated, and can be more conveniently installed in various locations of the vehicle. At the same time, with the improvement of processor performance, the laser radar will be deeply integrated with the on-board computing platform, realizing faster data processing and decision-making support, and enhancing the overall performance of the unmanned driving system.

Intelligent transportation and city management: Radar will not only play a role in unmanned vehicles, but will also be widely used in intelligent transportation systems and city management. For example, by deploying laser radar sensors in urban infrastructure, traffic flow can be monitored in real time, signal management can be optimized, and traffic safety can be improved. This kind of intelligent management will provide technical support for the construction of smart cities in the future and promote the widespread application of unmanned driving technology.

Conclusion
As a key technology in unmanned vehicles, laser radar provides high-precision and high-resolution environment sensing capability for autonomous driving systems. It not only helps vehicles make intelligent decisions in complex traffic environments, but also lays the technical foundation for future intelligent transportation systems and urban management. With the continuous advancement of laser radar technology, the safety and reliability of unmanned vehicles will be further enhanced, promoting their popularization and application worldwide. In the future, laser radar will play an even more important role in the field of unmanned driving, leading the future changes in transportation.