Lumotive, developer of Light Control Metasurface (LCM) beam-steering chips, and Gpixel, a producer of high-end CMOS image sensor solutions, have made available the M30 Reference Design Platform in an effort to speed adoption of next-generation 3D lidar sensors for mobility and industrial applications, including autonomous navigation of robots in logistics environments.

Compared to traditional flash illumination solutions, lidar sensors based on LCM electronic beam steering carry advantages in outdoor range performance: They reduce multipath effects for better point cloud quality, optimize illumination across the field of view in high ambient light levels and for varying levels of reflectivity, and improve interference mitigation from other sensors, among other advantages.

The first version of the M30 Reference Design Platorm is currently being evaluated by a number of lidar systems developers, ToF camera makes, and industrial OEMs. The next generation of the platform with enhanced performance and optimized for volume manufacturing is expected to be available by mid-2023.