LiDAR Competitive Landscape

A large number of design combinations are possible in a LiDAR system. In fact, there are roughly 900 conceivable combinations. This, along with the revolution in the Autonomy of Things, has created momentum for significant investments in the LiDAR supplier landscape with over 70 companies operating in the space today. A majority of these companies are backed by venture capital, and a few are within automotive Tier 1 or autonomous driving companies.

The image below gives a detailed representation and breakdown of the LiDAR competitive environment as it stands today. 

1. L3 and L4 are SAE definitions of levels of autonomy for cars and trucks
2. Captive = Not likely to Sell LiDAR externally
3. No 14XX/15XX nm flash solutions exist
4. No 8XX/9XX nm FMCW solutions
5. Tetravue, Argo, IBEO, Quanergy bankrupt; Velodyne and Sense Photonics acquired by Ouster; Cepton has announced possible acquisition;Fastree 3D acquired by Hesai.
6. Innoviz, Valeo, Hesai, Innovusion, Robosense have significant L3 traction now.
7. Bold❿ numerals indicate different system approaches in decreasing order of prominence (number of companies, investments, traction) 

Each of these LiDAR systems within the LiDAR competitive landscape has their own sets of advantages in terms of performance, cost, scalability and SWaP (size, weight and power) for different Autonomy of Things applications.