At CES 2020, Ouster announced a completely new category of short-range lidar sensors, and a new addition to its long-range lidar series, the OS2-128.
Featuring long and mid-range lidar sensors already, Ouster is now adding a new short-range category of lidar sensors to its portfolio. The new ultra-wide view OS0-128 provides short-range visibility with enough resolution for perception and object classification. Weighing 425g each, this new sensor features a 95-degree field-of-view, and can scan objects from a range of 0 up to 50 meters.
For applications with fewer perception or object classification needs, Ouster also developed the OS0-32 sensor. With identical specifications to the OS0-128 but with a lower resolution, the OS0-32 enables indoor or outdoor robots to avoid obstacles at relatively high speeds and can replace a series of smaller sensors with a single wide field of view lidar sensor.
Honored with CES Innovation Award and designed for commercial deployment, the new OS2 128-channel sensor is the newest addition to the company’s long-range family, which was introduced in 2018. The OS2-128 detects objects within a 240-meter range at 80% reflectivity and features a vertical angular resolution of 0.18-degrees uniformly across a 22.5-degree vertical field-of-view.
“Ouster’s new 128 channel lidar sensors incorporate an ASIC built on our next generation silicon architecture – internally codenamed ‘Whitney.’, Ouster Co-Founder and CEO Angus Pacala said. “Developed over the last two years, these are the most advanced lidar ASICs ever created.”
In addition, Ouster released custom beam patterns for all 16, 32, and 64 beam sensors to achieve higher angular resolution in portions of the field of view. The Gradient pattern clusters beams tightly at the horizon, and increases spacing between beams toward the top and bottom of the sensor’s field of view; the Below Horizon pattern clusters beams below the horizon, in an evenly spaced pattern, reducing the sensor’s vertical field of view by half, and doubling the angular resolution in the clustered area; and the Tight pattern concentrates beams around the horizon, trading field of view for angular resolution.
Founded in 2015, Ouster’s mission is to build the most reliable sensors with the best resolution at pricing to enable scaled commercial, and it does seem the company is delivering. Just last month, Ouster introduced the $8K 32-channel lidar to the OS1 family, and in the last couple of years, we’ve seen various new products added to its lineup, such as the OS1-128 and the OS1-64.
With these new additions, Ouster claims it now has a complete high-resolution sensor suite to address every use-case across a range of industries, be it for long or short-range applications. The Ouster OS0-128 and OS2-128 lidar sensors are now available for order, with prices ranging from $6,000 to $18,000, and $16,000 to $24,000, respectively.
