The world according to Velodyne's VLS-128, since renamed the Alpha Puck. (Courtesy Velodyne)
I wrote quite a bit about Velodyne in The Laser That's Changing the World -- David Hall, the company's founder and CEO, is a brilliant engineer who developed the lidar sensor that paved they way for the first great leaps in vehicle autonomy,…
Elon Musk was right when he called lidar a “crutch” when it came to self-driving cars. Where he’s not right, though, is that the technology’s crutchitude is somehow a reason not to employ lidar—which uses lasers to scan the world around them, identify objects and characterize surroundings to centimeter accuracy—as a fundamental sensor on self-driving…