An Avalanche of APD Innovations
Jun 4, 2019 — When autonomous vehicles hit the streets, they navigate with the help of avalanche photodiodes, or APDs. These semiconductor photodetectors capture returning laser pulses as part of lidar systems, and this APD-derived data determines the distance to other vehicles, to objects, and to people — information critical for safe driving. Lidar is a fast-growing APD application, and, according to Anand Pandy, applications engineering leader at Excelitas Technologies Corp. of Waltham,