SBIR Phase I: Micro-Fluidic LiDAR for Autonomous Vehicles

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是加速自动运输系统的部署，这将减少驾驶事故和死亡人数，实现城市设计的新范式，减少车辆流量，提高汽车效率，改善空气质量，使驾驶员和非驾驶员的健康立即受益。高级驾驶辅助系统（ADAS）是半自动控制系统的简单植入，但已经通过提供智能巡航控制、车道偏离警告、转向辅助和先发制人的紧急制动来挽救生命。随着ADAS通过本工作开发的先进传感器硬件得到改进，并得到更广泛的部署，将避免更多的事故，挽救更多的生命。预计自动驾驶汽车将加速当前的趋势，从私人拥有多辆汽车到交通服务，如优步和Lyft，以及自动驾驶汽车服务，这一趋势在纽约市和旧金山很明显，那里的停车场容量正在下降。由于拼车车道促进了更明智的通勤和减少拥堵，未来的自动驾驶车道可以实现队列行驶，车辆在高速行驶时缩短彼此之间的距离，减少阻力，提高燃油经济性，并更好地利用公共基础设施。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将产生一个视觉系统，可以提供物体的三维数据，从而广泛采用送货机器人、无人机、先进的车辆驾驶员安全系统和自动驾驶汽车。为了以更低的成本提供更高的性能和可靠性，该公司将通过两项关键技术创新来解决现有技术面临的挑战：基于磁流体动力学的高速广角激光束转向技术，以及中性浮力光学力学的使用。这两项创新使光束能够扫过广阔的视场，以高帧率提供3D点云数据，并且可以免受坑洞和减速带等道路危险的振动影响。这项研究的最终目标是展示一个功能齐全的成像系统，该系统使用了在这项工作中开发的组件。预计开发的组件将通过低成本的电磁驱动电机实现对激光源的精确空间控制，并展示与量产车辆部署一致的性能指标。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to hasten the deployment of autonomous transportation systems, which stand to reduce driving accidents and fatalities, enable new paradigms in urban design, reduce vehicle traffic, increase automobile efficiency, and improve air quality, benefiting the immediate health of drivers and non-drivers alike. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are simpler implantations of semi-autonomous controls systems, but are already saving lives by providing intelligent cruise control, lane departure warnings, steering assistance, and preemptive emergency braking. As ADAS improves through advanced sensor hardware developed in this work and becomes more widely deployed, more accident will be avoided and lives saved. Autonomous vehicles are expected to accelerate current trends from private ownership of multiple vehicles to transportation services, such as Uber and Lyft, and autonomous vehicle services, a trend evident in New York city and San Francisco, where parking lot capacity is dropping. As carpool lanes have promoted wiser commuting and reduced congestion, future autonomous lanes can enable platooning, where vehicles travel at reduced distances between each other at high speed, reducing drag, increasing fuel economy, and better utilizing public infrastructure.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will result in a vision system that delivers three dimensional data of objects in view, allowing for the widespread adoption of delivery robots, drones, advanced driver safety systems in vehicles, and autonomous vehicles. To deliver performance and reliability at a cost that enabled wide adoption, the company will address the challenges facing incumbent technologies with two key technological innovations: A high speed, wide angle laser beam steering technology based on magneto-hydro-dynamics, and the use of neutrally buoyant optomechanics. These two innovations allow for light beams to be swept across a wide field of view, delivering 3D point cloud data at high frame rate with operational immunity to vibrations from road hazards such as pot holes and speed bumps. The end objective of the research is to demonstrate a fully functionally imaging system operating with components developed in this work. It is anticipated that the developed components will implement precise spatial control of laser sources by a low cost electromagnetic drive motor, demonstrating performance metrics consistent with deployment on production vehicles.