LiDAR Industry Gradually Welcome Dawn Time, The First Enterprise Has Mastered Multiple Resource Advantages

Industry 4.0 wave swept in, digitalization, intelligence is reshaping the industrial production process, intelligent manufacturing industry, many sub-tracks continue to run out of the industry dark horse.
In recent years, in the "industrial + robotics" two major demand engine boost, applied to the sensing hardware terminal LiDAR ushered in more than 100 billion yuan of market prospects. A few days ago, the Securities Times reporter came to Weifang City, "Weifang City, specializing in new industrial park" of the headquarters of the Fu Rui Optical, the actual exploration of the "robot's eye" of the LiDAR production line.
It is understood that in 2023, the laser radar product shipments reached more than 40,000 units, according to the current market and customer forecast, in 2024 the company's business situation is expected to be another level. Industry insiders believe that the high-precision industrial LiDAR industry pattern is being reshaped, the industry gradually ushered in the "dawn" time.
For industry 4.0 equipped with "eyes"
With more and more industries to realize industry 4.0 as the goal, the sensor in the industrial field is more and more widely used. With sensors, the system equipment has a "sense organs", in which LiDAR will play the "eyes" function.
"Lidar is a laser through the launch of the surrounding environment to obtain the distance, reflective strength and other information to build two-dimensional or three-dimensional scene of the sensor." The chairman of the board of directors of Furui Optical Zhang Xiaofu introduced, with the development and application of related technologies, LiDAR with its high measurement accuracy, fine time and space resolution and other characteristics to become an important active remote sensing tools.
In the production workshop of Furui Optics, the reporter learned that industrial LiDAR usually has precise structural design and high-performance optoelectronic components, such as high-resolution laser transmitter, high sensitivity receiver, high-speed data collector. Industrial LiDAR usually requires high stability, high accuracy, high repeatability, high anti-interference ability and other characteristics.
"Lidar consists of four basic systems: laser transmission, reception, information processing, and scanning. It can highly accurately locate the spot where the laser beam hits the object, and the ranging accuracy can be up to the centimeter level, and the biggest advantage of LIDAR is 'precision' and 'fast, efficient operation'." Zhang Xiaofu introduction.
Currently, LiDAR is widely used in driverless cars and robotics, known as the robot's "eyes" in the broad sense, is a kind of active measurement device by transmitting lasers to measure the precise distance between the object and the sensor.
Through the transceiver array composed of lasers and detectors, combined with beam scanning, LIDAR can provide real-time sensing of the environment in which the device is located, and obtain the precise distance and contour information of the surrounding objects to realize the function of obstacle avoidance; at the same time, combined with the pre-collected high-precision maps, the robot's localization accuracy can reach centimeters in the environment through the LIDAR.
In industrial production and services and other fields, LiDAR is also widely used in industrial robots, robotic arms, AGV, intelligent logistics, intelligent warehousing, security inspection, unmanned forklifts, traffic monitoring and many other fields.
More and more companies today are adopting intelligent automation in factories, warehouses, ports and other commercial environments. "In ports, for example, processes such as container handling, palletizing, and warehousing logistics require faster and more efficient operations, and the use of high-accuracy LiDAR can help solve many productivity challenges and reduce losses caused by port congestion and production delays." Zhang Xiaofu said.
Sensors as one of the core key components of China's "strong foundation project" is an important part of industrial transformation and upgrading, improve product quality and reliability. At present, with the gradual increase in the degree of automation in the industrial field, the factory's requirements for sensors are also increasingly high. Many industrial applications are inseparable from the precise measurement, target tracking and movement functions, LiDAR generated by the 3D image data can meet these needs.
In the field of intelligent warehousing, for example, from improving the warehouse automation mobile robot (AGV), to ground transportation and distribution, LiDAR application can provide support for the construction of intelligent warehousing, and create a safer working environment while reducing costs and increasing efficiency. "At present, the annual domestic demand for AGV/intelligent unmanned forklifts is about 200,000 units, and with the development of the intelligent logistics industry and the localization of LiDAR, the future market will have a holding capacity of about 30 million units, and measured according to the installation of three LiDARs in one device, the future demand is very considerable." Zhang Xiaofu said.
Robotics industry to drive the expansion of market space
It is understood that the application of LiDAR technology has been limited to the military field, the civil and commercial applications in recent years to promote the popularization of the open.
"As early as the 1980s, civil LiDAR technology has matured, but due to the high cost failed to widely promote the application, after 2010, with the gradual completion of the domestic supply chain, application scenarios to broaden, as well as a series of technological breakthroughs brought about by the price drop, to be gradually applied in the industrial market." Zhang Xiaofu told, in recent years, with the continuous expansion of the application scene, the demand for LiDAR in the civil and commercial fields is explosive growth, and with the rapid development of the robotics industry, the sensor industry space is accelerating the expansion.
In the non-automotive field of LiDAR market, the market demand in the industrial field is the most extensive, according to relevant forecasts, the total LiDAR demand in the industrial field in 2022 is 5.1 million units, the market size of 2.8 billion U.S. dollars. Intelligent robotics is another important LiDAR application area, including service robots, industrial robots, agricultural robots, etc. The adoption of robots equipped with LiDAR solutions can improve the safety of the working environment, while reducing labor costs. It is predicted that by 2030, the number of global robotic devices will reach 13.5 million units, corresponding to more than 33.4 million units of LiDAR equipment demand and a market size of $16.7 billion.
In the industry's view, the industrial and robotics sectors are the closest to large-scale commercial deployment of LiDAR. Driven by industrial and robotics technology, intelligent infrastructure, and smart cities and other application areas, the market demand for LiDAR is growing rapidly, ushering in the opportunity for large-scale commercialization. At the same time, the active exploration of cost control by companies represented by Fortune Optics will also make LiDAR from "the old days of Wang Xie Tangqian Yan" to "fly into the common people's homes" gradually become a reality.
"Emerging downstream applications for LiDAR precision requirements continue to improve, the test of enterprise core technology accumulation and mass production experience." Zhang Xiaofu said, with the downstream application field terminal identification grabbing scene increase, the LiDAR angular resolution and ranging accuracy put forward higher requirements, at the same time, mass production of industrial high-precision LiDAR need to overcome the three core difficulties, including the underlying architecture design, core algorithmic capabilities, production calibration experience, which makes the market with the production of high-precision industrial LiDAR ability of the enterprise is extremely scarce.
According to the relevant research report analysis, if the four-quadrant pattern to divide the existing industrial LiDAR players, horizontal for the mass production and delivery capacity from weak to strong, vertical for the LiDAR precision technology to achieve the ability of weak to strong, can see, the domestic low-end LiDAR enterprise mass production and delivery capacity is strong but the product accuracy does not meet the requirements, and the overseas players product accuracy is high but the mass production and delivery capacity is weak. Therefore, the traditional domestic and foreign enterprises in the industry have a lack of capacity, the industry pattern is being reshaped, there are "high product accuracy + mass production and delivery capacity" in the optimal competition quadrant, is expected to breed the next generation of industrial LiDAR unicorns.
The pioneering enterprises have mastered multiple advantages
From the current point of view, the domestic LiDAR track has become increasingly crowded, but the domestic LiDAR enterprises are still generally in mass production, qualification certification and other aspects of the difficulties.
Some industry insiders pointed out to the reporter that LiDAR manufacturers need to pass a series of qualification certification to meet the special certification requirements of assembly manufacturers. "Obtaining these qualification certificates is difficult, requiring LiDAR manufacturers to have standardized production workshops, inspection and testing equipment and staffing to meet the requirements, the corresponding management system and supporting supply of operating records, which constitutes the qualification barriers to enter the industry."
Zhang Xiaofu also told reporters that the LiDAR industry has the characteristics of customer introduction is difficult, so earlier in the industry for deep cultivation of enterprises have more advantages. 2017, as the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Semiconductor Laser Research Institute of Dr. Zhang Xiaofu returned to Weifang, brought together more than a dozen doctors, masters of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, and other domestic top scientific research personnel and management team founded the Fu Rui optical, become the domestic early It has become the first enterprise in China to plough into the application of LiDAR in the industrial field.
At present, the end-use of LIDAR products has covered domestic and foreign head manufacturing enterprises, and its customer list also includes many service robots, industrial robots, head of the field of customers. "Business cooperation in the field of industrial robotics is growing explosively, and a four-fold increase in shipments has been realized from 2022 to 2023, with sufficient orders on hand at present." Zhang Xiaofu said.
It is reported that the Fu Rui optical has a more complete product matrix in the industry, from obstacle avoidance to navigation category has a number of series of products, with measurement accuracy up to the centimeter level, environmental adaptability, low reflectivity object recognition, supply chain comprehensive localization alternative, and other different features, downstream application areas covering a wide range.
At present, Furui Optical has accumulated strong hardware and software strength in the most core and difficult precision control and mass production. It has outstanding performance in the product underlying hardware architecture, high-precision underlying ranging algorithms, self-developed calibration production line hardware equipment, calibration algorithms to ensure the correction of key parameters and other core capabilities.
In addition, LIDAR industry is highly dependent on innovative high-end talents, in order to recruit talents, Fortune Optics has set up a R&D center in Beijing, adopting the cooperation mode of universities, famous enterprises and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), utilizing the advantage of Beijing's high-end talents gathering to introduce the talents of CAS, and hiring the experts from Tsinghua University, Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, CSIC, and the Beihang Aviation Corporation as the expert consultants, to continue to push forward the company's technological research and development and the Lidar industry innovation.
In recent years, China attaches great importance to the construction of Industry 4.0 intelligent manufacturing system, many places across the country have also introduced LiDAR industry development planning, Weifang City, Weicheng District, Weifang City, for example, the urban and rural areas through equity investment, policy incentives, etc., to vigorously support the LiDAR industry, and the establishment of a specialization and specialization of new industrial parks, to promote the large-scale of LiDAR, intelligent robotics and other emerging industries, to support industry chain Enterprises to accelerate the development.
The aforementioned industry insiders told reporters that the LiDAR industry is currently showing a trend of rapid growth in market size, high-performance product demand for rapid enhancement in the policy support, with the continued breakthroughs in intelligent technology and upgrading, as well as service robots and intelligent transportation construction and other areas of demand to promote the LiDAR market size is expected to achieve rapid expansion.