Google and Uber Are Fighting Over Lidar Technology. What Is It?
- Autonomous cars use lidar to monitor their environment
- Laser-based technology remains too expensive for mass market
Alphabet’s Waymo Sues Uber Over Self-Driving Tech
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Spacecraft use it to measure distance. Farmers use it to work out which fields need fertilizer. Archaeologists use it to map topography. And, crucially for Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, self-driving cars use lidar to navigate.
As carmakers and technology entrants scramble to develop autonomous vehicles, lidar has become a highly coveted technology. And now it’s at the center of a lawsuit pitting Waymo against Uber, the ride hailing upstart seeking to create its own autonomous vehicle empire.