Optical sensing is the key technology of self-driving because a self-driving car relies on a sensor system to perceive and navigate its surrounding environment accurately to ensure safety. Highly reliable and stable fiber optic components are required in this system, such as fiber optic FBT coupler, pump combiners and WDM.
Optical technologies are key factors to enable self-driving vehicles to become possible. Fiber optics are used in autonomous vehicles for lighting, communication and sensing due to their characteristics, such as the large capacity for data transmission, fast speed and high reliability. Especially the high requirements of accurate navigation and safety insurance rely on LIDAR, a variety of optical sensors and cameras to detect the road environment.
LIDAR short for light detection and ranging, this technology uses near-infrared to detect objects and create precise 3D images. LIDAR sensing and detecting are applied in automated vehicles to detect surroundings in a wide range, such as road conditions, traffic lights and pedestrians to avoid collisions. It is essential to realize the vision of autonomous driving. While RADAR uses radio waves to detect objects, radio wavelengths are larger than light wavelengths, so it is not as accurate as LIDAR sensing.
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