LiDAR, short for light detection and ranging, uses pulsed lasers to accurately calculate distances as well as correctly detect the size and shape of objects. The high resolution of the information — LiDAR can resolve to a few centimeters from more than 100 meters away — and the ability to create accurate model three-dimensional images have made the technology critical in many applications. Some uses include autonomous vehicles and automobile crash avoidance, surveying, environment, construction, agriculture, oil and gas exploration, and pollution modeling.

“What’s a ‘steering wheel’?” At the present time this would be a very strange question to hear asked from anyone who has driven, ridden in, or even seen a car but in a couple of decades this may not seem so unusual. The evolution of increasingly affordable and capable sensing and imaging systems combined with the desire to create safer, more efficient transportation systems is driving the development of autonomous vehicles (pun intended). LiDAR is a key technology that will eventually help carry this growth through to “Level 5” autonomy : no steering wheels, no brake pedals, no human intervention in driving.

Utilization of mid-wavelength, also called midwave, infrared (MWIR) light is critical in many areas, including thermal monitoring of equipment and homes; gas absorption; military enhanced-vision systems for imaging vehicles, people, and terrain; and environmental monitoring of gases. Even diagnosis of pregnancy in dairy cows, among other applications, can productively use infrared in the MWIR range.

“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”