The first Velodyne LiDAR weighed 100 pounds and was 30 inches in diameter. Velodyne built this unit to guide their autonomous vehicle in the 2005 DARPA Challenge. There was so much interest from the competitors in the LiDAR that Velodyne gave up on building vehicles and decided to go into the scanner business.
Their just released unit the HDL-32E is the smallest, lightest and least expensive model to date. Positioned for the autonomous vehicle and mobile mapping markets my contacts tell me that it is very impressive.
Velodyne continues to innovate in this market
