C2 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2021
Lidar on rise to power future
smart cities, autonomous cars
BY DALVIN BROWN
The Washington Post
Mobility analysts, urban
planners and AI companies bill
widespread lidar as a building
block for future urban soci-
eties, where autonomous ve-
hicles, smart homes and in-
frastructure work together to
create “smart” cities.
Lidar, short for light detec-
tion and ranging, is a sensing
method that enables devices to
glean what an object is based
on its shape. In theory, when
deployed on traffic lights, in
parking lots and on enough
vehicles, the technology could
help contextualize what’s hap-
pening outside so cities can
better manage energy and se-
curity. It could also manage
traffic congestion.
The tech has been around
since at least the 1970s. How-
ever, it was considered too ex-
pensive and complicated for
companies in a broad range
of industries to utilize. That is
until now, according to Han-
Bin Lee, founder of South Ko-
rea-based Seoul Robotics, a
computer vision company.
Prices have come down so
much that the tech is found in
the latest model iPhones. It’s
how robot vacuums see what’s
around your home. It’s at the
center of several thought-pro-
voking product announce-
ments to come out of this year’s
CES, a large, global tech con-
ference that took place this
week.
Seoul Robotics launched
Discovery, a software and
hardware service to interpret
light and radar data for facto-
ries, retailers, automakers and
more. Other companies an-
nounced lidar applications for
autonomous consumer cars
and robotaxis, with Intel’s Mo-
bileye that passenger vehicles
will be self-driving by 2025.
The technology has its lim-
itations, particularly on cars. It
produces lower resolution im-
ages than cameras and tends
to cost more. However, lidar
represents a growing market
and is projected to triple to al-
most $3 billion by 2025. For-
ward-thinking tech companies
at CES say they’re hoping to
take advantage of it. Here are
some of the most innovative li-
dar products and ideas.
Seoul Robotics says it
wanted to take the siloed in-
dustry of lidar software and
expand it to the masses. Essen-
tially, the software company
developed what it calls an easy-
to-use “plug-and-play” lidar
system that allows a wide range
of organizations to benefit
from 3-D sensors.
Seoul Robotic via The Washington Post
Seoul Robotics launched a new product to equip urban cities with 3-D vision.
For instance, retail stores
could use it to understand
where people are moving and
whether patrons are social dis-
tancing. Cities could use it on
highway offramps to detect ve-
hicles going the wrong way.
Its offering is meant to an-
alyze and interpret 3-D data
from most available lidar prod-
ucts. It was built to unlock “au-
tonomy through infrastruc-
ture,” Lee said.
Seoul Robotics already has
a few big-name partnerships
under its belt, including BMW
and Mercedes-Benz. It also
partnered with the lidar com-
pany Velodyne on office mon-
itoring tech for Qualcomm.
Seoul Robotic’s software has
been installed in parking lots
to help automate cars. BMW
used it to move driverless vehi-
cles via wireless Internet con-
nections.
“So basically, this infrastruc-
ture takes over the vehicle. And
thousands of vehicles can be
automated with just a few sen-
sors,” Lee said.
Intel’s MobilEye said at the
trade show that it developed
a strategy for making highly
automated cars safe enough to
use on roads across the globe
by 2025.
The company, a leading
player in automotive technol-
ogy, plans to leverage crowd-
sourced mapping, a cam-
era-based computer vision
system and a lidar suite to
achieve its goal.
MobileEye, which Intel
snapped up in 2017, has been
testing its mapping technology
in Munich and plans to use
cameras built into production
vehicles to map the world. The
company claims to have al-
ready mapped nearly 621 mil-
lion miles, setting a foundation
for autonomous cars to follow.
Pending regulatory approval,
Mobileye will expand its fleet
of autonomous test vehicles to
New York City by the end of
the year, the company says.
Its project relies on two inde-
pendent computer vision sys-
tems to ensure that vehicles are
safer in self-driving mode than
if a human were controlling the
car. One is a camera-based sys-
tem that is advanced enough to
power the car autonomously,
and the other is a lidar and ra-
dar-based system that’s strong
enough to do the same thing.
The two approaches are
fused along with the 3-D maps
allowing “safety-critical per-
formance that is at least three
orders of magnitude safer than
humans,” according to Mobil-
eye. Pending regulatory ap-
proval, Mobileye will expand
its fleet of autonomous test ve-
hicles to New York City by the
end of the year.
The Munich-based start-up
Blickfeld showed two new li-
dar sensors for cars meant to
hit the market in three to four
years. The 3-D sensors, dubbed
Vision Mini and Vision Plus,
are designed to produce a sur-
round-view “that is crucial for
automated urban traffic as well
as robotic vehicles,” according
to the company.
The Mini is small, roughly
five centimeters long and is
meant to detect closer range
objects around a vehicle. It’s
customizable to fit within a
vehicle’s design scheme, ac-
cording to the company. The
larger Vision Plus can pick up
things 650 feet in front of and
behind cars with self-driving
features. Together, they’re de-
signed to enable cars to handle
more than one automated task
at a time.
A combination of six sen-
sors are needed for 360-degree
views, unlocking level four
autonomous capabilities, says
Florian Petit, founder of Blick-
feld. The company is working
with production partners to
meet what it sees as a rapidly
increasing demand.
“We saw that there’s a huge
gap between the cars produced
to be autonomous eventually
and the number of lidars pro-
duced,” Petit said.
ANNIVERSARY
BY ALEXIA ELEJALDE-RUIZ
Chicago Tribune
A Jewel-Osco store in Chi-
cago is the first grocery in
the nation to pilot an auto-
mated pickup kiosk, one of
numerous investments gro-
cers are making to prepare
for a future of more online
shopping.
The kiosk, located in the
store parking lot, is meant to
offer a convenient and con-
tact-free option for online
shoppers to collect their gro-
ceries. Shoppers are asked
to select a two-hour pickup
window, and when they ar-
rive they scan a code and
their items are delivered ro-
botically, according to the
company.
Employees shop the store
to fill customers’ orders and
put them into the kiosk for
pickup. The kiosk, made by
Estonia-based Cleveron, has
a refrigerated and deep freeze
zone so ice cream can be
picked up at the same con-
sole as bananas.
Jewel-Osco parent Albert-
sons plans to install a second
kiosk at a Safeway in the San
Francisco Bay Area but has
not announced plans for a
wider rollout.
“We are supercharging our
digital and omnichannel of-
ferings to serve customers
however they want, when-
ever they want,” Chris Rupp,
executive vice president and
chief customer and digital of-
ficer at Albertsons, said in a
news release.
Albertsons, the third-larg-
est grocery chain in the U.S.,
has been testing various
ways to streamline pickup
and delivery as e-commerce
becomes a bigger part of
its business, driven in part
by the pandemic as people
avoided going out in pub-
lic. Digital sales grew 225%
during the third quarter
ended Dec. 5, compared with
the same period the year be-
fore, according to company
earnings released last week.
The company, headquar-
tered in Boise, Idaho, recently
announced it will transi-
tion to third-party delivery
in some markets, includ-
ing Chicago, where its Jew-
el-Osco brand is the Chicago
area’s largest grocery chain by
store count, and California.
The announcement came
shortly after California vot-
ers approved Proposition 22,
which exempts gig economy
companies like DoorDash
from a state labor law that
would have forced them to
employ drivers and pay for
health care, unemployment
insurance and other benefits.
Jewel-Osco, which until
now has used a combina-
tion of in-house drivers and
DoorDash for delivery, said
that next month it will stop
using its own fleet and tran-
sition entirely to third-party
providers to “help us create a
more efficient operation and
compete more effectively in
the growing home delivery
market.”
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OVER
Jim and Peg Slothower
Jim and Peg Slothower cel-
ebrated their 50th wedding
anniversary Saturday but have
deferred a formal celebration
until after the pandemic.
The couple was married
Jan. 23, 1971, at the Evans
Chapel on the University of
Denver campus in Colorado.
They met on a blind date while
attending college in Portland.
They have two children, Matt,
of Redmond, and Scott, of Bill-
ings, Montana; eight grand-
children.
Mr. Slothower is a native
Oregonian. He is a veteran,
having served as a Russian
translator in the USAF Secu-
rity Service. Mr. Slothower
practiced law in Bend for over
40 years before retiring in
2017. He has served as a di-
rector on the boards of many
nonprofits, most recently on
the Interfaith Network of Cen-
tral Oregon. He enjoys cycling,
Store experiments with
automated pickup kiosks
100 YEARS
of service to our community
Submitted photo
Peg and Jim Slothower
hiking, camping, gardening,
leatherworking, traveling and
spending time with his grand-
children.
Mrs. Slothower grew up in
Colorado and moved to Or-
egon to attend Lewis & Clark
College. She was employed
by the Educational Services
District for many years as a
speech-language pathologist/
augmentative communica-
tion specialist before retiring
in 2017. She shares a love of
the outdoors, especially skiing,
camping and hiking. Both she
and her husband are actively
involved in the Baha’i Faith.
They have lived in Central
Oregon for 43 years.
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