By Jamie Barrie C anada has built an amazing artificial intelligence sector and some say the best in the industry and now a Canadian company based out of Quebec City looks to take the wheel in the driverless car market, with lidar (laser radar) technology so these vehicles can see where they’re going. LeddarTech was spun out of the National Optics Institute, a government-funded research facility in Quebec City. Back in the 1980s, the dean of Laval University at the time persuaded the federal and provincial governments that optics and pho- tonics were the future of tech. Not long after, a small research team began developing lidar in conjunction with a research agency at the Department of National Defence, which wanted technology that could detect biological warfare agents.
Now LeddarTech Inc says that it can make the solid-state technology better and cheaper than earlier versions of lidar and with the race on to get self-driving cars on the road in the next three to four years, lidar will be key in making that possible.
Driverless cars will have to analyse what today’s drivers see around them using data from cameras, radar and lidar, which bounces laser light off objects to assess shape and location.
Computers and high-speed processors analyse the data to provide 360-degree detection of lanes, traffic, pedestrians, signs, stoplights and anything else in the vehicle’s path, which will determine where the driverless car will go.
Current versions of lidar technology are bulky, expensive and vulnerable to wear and tear from weather and vibration of the vehicle, but LeddarTech Inc looks to change that as Lidar companies are now shifting to solid-state technology, meaning no moving parts, which is less susceptible to mechanical failure and changing weather conditions. As for cost, new technology are taking the price from what was once up to $70,000 to an expected cost of below $100 in three to four years. LeddarTech researchers started working on solid-state lidar for autonomous cars about ten years ago, which is long before many of its competitors. While its technology still costs a few hundred dollars, the company says it produces images that are 25 times sharper than rival lidar, meaning a driverless car can more precisely maintain awareness of nearby pedestri- ans, vehicles and other objects giving LeddarTech an advantage in the market place as Canadian technology companies look to delicate their success in artificial intelligence and take the checkered flag in the race to a driverless car.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • OCTOBER 2017
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