Meta Universe detonates the capital market and the field of science and technology at the same time. In the future vision of Meta Universe, Lidar has already reserved a pivotal position.
It can be predicted that the application range of lidar may have surpassed today's imagination.
Today, let Xiaohui take everyone to explore together, what kind of spark will be created between Lidar and Metaverse? With what capabilities does Lidar rely on to deeply participate in the process of meta-universe pointing to the digital survival of mankind?
Wider application stage
In the late 1980s, the world's first airborne laser scanner, Ackermann-19, was born at the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Lidar came to the world in its original form of airborne and used for surveying and mapping.
Compared with traditional aerial surveys that rely on cameras, remote sensors and other equipment, the early lidar, which combines laser scanning, inertial positioning, GPS and other technical systems, has the advantages of high original point density and high elevation accuracy. It has received common attention from the academic and commercial fields. Around 1995, Lidar officially embarked on the journey of commercial application.
Today, the "footprint" of surveying and mapping aircraft equipped with lidar has spread all over the world
For more than 30 years since its commercial application, Lidar has been used to scan the terrain from the beginning. Along the way, he has grown into an "all-round player" with irreplaceable roles in the fields of geographic surveying and mapping, autonomous driving, special vehicles and equipment, and real-world 3D digital twins.
In the field of geographic surveying and mapping, the carrying platform of lidar has been transformed from the early single-seater/two-seater fixed-wing aircraft to a variety of UAVs.
At the same time, the various technical indicators of the lidar system itself have also been comprehensively strengthened under the impetus of technological evolution iterations.
Take the micro-UAV LiDAR system Genius under Surestar as an example. This product has a maximum detection distance of 200-250m, a laser sampling frequency of 640kHz, and centimeter-level elevation accuracy and ranging accuracy. It is used in various types of measurements. In surveying and mapping tasks, the point cloud of the survey area with a point density of 300pts/m² can be easily obtained.
Genius LiDAR System and UAV Carrying Platform
In recent years, lidar has got rid of its shortcomings in cost, environmental adaptability, lightness and miniaturization, and car-grade products have gradually appeared in the market. Based on the natural advantages of LiDAR in perception, LiDAR has now become the core and necessary sensor for autonomous driving perception systems widely recognized by the industry.
The first domestic front-mounted solid-state LiDAR with a complete vehicle-gauge design—Surestar C-Fans series has outstanding features such as low cost, high reliability, low latency, high resolution, and large field of view, is the star product family that can represent the current development level of navigation obstacle avoidance lidar.
With the continuous development of the digital economy, digital twin generation has become one of the latest major application areas of lidar products. At the moment when the real-life 3D digital twin scenes are extremely rich, the application scenes of 3D scanning have already broken through the scope of topographic surveying and industrial surveying. Underground spaces, high-rise buildings, piles of slopes, single structures...Almost all scenes have three-dimensional scanning requirements. The complexity of the operating environment has greatly increased, stimulating the growing popularity of hand-held LiDAR subdivision tracks.
Just as the general trend of the widespread use of lidar in the field of digital twins began to emerge, the meta-universe, a concept more oriented towards the future than digital twins, began to appear in the public's field of vision. While detonating the capital market and technology fields like thunder on the ground, Meta Universe has also opened up a new application stage for lidar.
The "Infrastructure Sensor" of Meta Universe
Recently, Facebook changed its name to Meta and turned to Metaverse, which aroused the attention of the capital market. Although it will take some time to realize the ultimate form of Meta universe, this does not affect the continued popularity of Meta universe in the field of technology entrepreneurship.
ByteDance invested 9 billion in the acquisition of VR software and hardware R&D manufacturer "Pico"; through its investment in Epic Games, Tencent continued to invest in content and social networking, and deployed a true Internet; NVIDIA announced a high-profile announcement to increase support for the exploration of the field of human-computer interaction Strength; Apple said that it is highly optimistic about the development of AR and plans to launch virtual interactive glasses products in the second half of 2022; Roblox, the world's largest multiplayer online creative game, has begun to deploy PUGC game assets in the field, hoping to realize the economy of game producers and consumers Closed loop...For a time, global technology giants and upstarts in subdivisions have deployed the meta-universe from all directions and explored various possibilities. Although the meta-universe has not yet come to the world, the "meta-universe era" has arrived.
The term Metaverse comes from the science fiction novel "Avalanche" by writer Neal Stephenson, which describes a world where people interact with various software in a three-dimensional space as virtual images. Conceptually, the meta-universe describes an artificial space that runs parallel to the real world. It is the "ultimate form" of the Internet with peak immersion and participation.
The world described in the movie "Ready Player One" is very close to the concept of the ultimate form of the meta universe
From the perspective of technical realization, Metaverse has put forward higher requirements in terms of immersion, participation, and sustainability than the current Internet. Therefore, it will be composed of many independent tools, platforms, infrastructures, and protocols. Wait to support its operation. Lidar, like AR/VR, 5G, cloud computing and other technologies, is an important force that supports the meta-universe's gradual transition from concept to reality.
In the process of constructing the "virtual world" of Metaverse, a large number of high-fidelity and high-frequency updated real-world models are required. This is where the lidar comes in. It uses lidar to capture three-dimensional data in the real world. Using these data in meta-universe applications is undoubtedly a faster and more realistic solution than "creating the world out of thin air" from a pixel.
Take the handheld 3D laser scanner "StarScan" released by Surestar in the first half of this year as an example:
As a handheld laser radar independently developed by Surestar, "StarScan" fully demonstrates Surestar's profound knowledge in the field of laser radar. With a scanning speed of 320,000 points per second and a 360° omni-directional field of view without dead angles, the "StarScan" can complete the data collection and processing of a 5000m² work area in less than 10 minutes.
At the same time, StarScan has IP54 dust and water resistance, and can operate normally in special environments such as light rain, heavy fog, and seaside. In the absence of GPS signals, "StarScan" can also accurately match the point cloud with its new high-precision SLAM algorithm to complete the operation. StarScan has the ability to acquire large-scale, high-precision and high-density three-dimensional spatial information in underground space scanning, forestry surveys, garden surveying and mapping, outdoor modeling and surveying, etc. Perfectly meet the scanning and mapping requirements in the above scenes.
The "A man who wins himself is bad for nothing" lidar can theoretically scan and model all objective existences in the physical world and use it for the construction of the meta-universe.
The natural and precise sensing characteristics of lidar strongly support its ability to exert its value with infrastructure properties as the meta-universe gradually moves towards reality.
Moreover, in this application direction, lidar will no longer be restricted by product form or type. Almost all types of lidar products can participate, whether it is traditional site-type laser scanners or time-honored airborne lasers. The radar system is still the "at the summit of one's power" navigation lidar, or a portable handheld 3D laser scanner that is rising like a new star.
The continuous evolution of lidar products has enabled it not only to face the present, but also to be applied in more and more fields, but also to face the future and participate in the future vision of the meta-universe.(www.isurestar.net)