Beyond Robotics: What Other Fields Can LiDAR Be Applied to?

After more than 40 years of development, LiDAR technology has evolved far beyond its original role in laser ranging. It has gradually expanded to include laser tracking, laser velocimetry, laser scanning imaging, and laser Doppler imaging. As a result, many different types of LiDAR systems have emerged and are now widely applied across diverse industries.

For many years, LiDAR was not widely known to the general public. It was only with the rapid rise of robotics and autonomous driving technologies in recent years that LiDAR entered mainstream awareness. In fact, LiDAR was not originally developed solely for robotics (including autonomous vehicles). It has long been used in fields such as VR/AR, intelligent transportation, ocean exploration and fisheries monitoring, and 3D printing, among others.

Robotics: Enabling Autonomous Localization and Navigation

Autonomous localization and navigation are fundamental capabilities for mobile robots. Regardless of robot type, any system involving autonomous movement requires reliable navigation and positioning within its operating environment.

Traditional navigation methods lacked sufficient intelligence and robustness to solve these challenges effectively. The introduction of LiDAR significantly mitigated these limitations. Modern robotic navigation systems are primarily based on LiDAR SLAM, often combined with visual and inertial sensors in a multi-sensor fusion architecture. This enables robots to perform autonomous mapping, path planning, and obstacle avoidance.

LiDAR-based SLAM is currently regarded as the most stable and reliable localization and navigation solution, offering long service life and low system upgrade costs.

Vacuum cleaning robots represent the most widespread application of single-line LiDAR. When combined with SLAM algorithms, LiDAR allows these robots to perform intelligent room-level cleaning while simultaneously generating maps. These maps are transmitted in real time to mobile applications, enabling users to monitor cleaning progress remotely and schedule targeted cleaning even when away from home.

Autonomous Vehicles: Road Environment Perception and Route Planning

In autonomous driving, LiDAR systems typically use multi-line configurations. Their role is similar to that in robotics: enabling vehicles to perceive the surrounding road environment, plan driving paths autonomously, and control vehicle motion toward predefined destinations.

LiDAR determines road geometry and intersections using time-of-flight (ToF) principles—calculating relative distance by measuring the round-trip time of laser pulses reflected from obstacles. Laser beams precisely measure object contours and relative distances, generating dense point clouds that form 3D environment maps with centimeter-level accuracy, significantly improving perception reliability.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): Obstacle Avoidance

LiDAR has reached practical deployment in low-altitude helicopter obstacle avoidance, and its military applications continue to mature. Helicopters flying at low altitude are highly susceptible to collisions with terrain features or man-made structures.

To address this, airborne LiDAR systems capable of detecting and avoiding ground obstacles have been developed and successfully deployed in countries such as the United States, Germany, and France.

For example, a U.S.-developed ultra-low-altitude helicopter obstacle avoidance system uses solid-state laser diode transmitters and rotating holographic scanners to detect a wide airspace ahead of the aircraft. Obstacle information is displayed in real time on head-up displays or helmet-mounted displays, significantly enhancing flight safety.

AR/VR: Accurate 3D Spatial Positioning

AR and VR technologies have gained strong momentum in recent years and show considerable market potential. Products such as VR headsets and smart glasses are already commercially available, while AR head-mounted displays are increasingly used in various applications.

In AR gaming and immersive experiences, spatial perception and positioning technologies rely on LiDAR and complementary optical sensors. Through SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), the system accurately determines the user’s position in 3D space, significantly enhancing realism and immersion.

Marine Biology: Ocean Exploration and Fisheries Monitoring

LiDAR applications in marine biology are primarily focused on fisheries resource surveys and marine ecological monitoring.

• Fisheries monitoringoften uses blue–green pulsed lasers as excitation sources. By analyzing LiDAR echo signals, systems can estimate fish school distribution and density. Polarization characteristics can further assist in species identification.
• Marine environmental monitoringtypically employs laser-induced fluorescence LiDAR to analyze spectral signals emitted by targets, enabling the detection and concentration analysis of plankton, chlorophyll, and other marine substances.

In recent years, environmental protection has gained increasing attention worldwide. As ocean conservation becomes a global consensus, marine LiDAR has emerged as a mainstream tool for advanced ocean exploration and monitoring.

3D Printing: Measurement and Process Monitoring

LiDAR also plays a role in 3D printing, particularly in measurement and monitoring tasks. One example is the previously popular Printoptical3D printing technology, which enables a direct workflow from CAD design to optical components without post-processing steps such as polishing, grinding, or coloring.

This technology is based on industrial-scale inkjet printing systems that deposit transparent polymer droplets cured by integrated ultraviolet light sources. LiDAR systems are used in this process for dimensional measurement, quality monitoring, and process control, ensuring precision and consistency across complex geometries.

Future Outlook

Beyond the applications discussed above, LiDAR continues to offer significant expansion potential. Different scenarios impose different performance requirements on LiDAR systems. In robotics, LiDAR demand is expected to continue growing, and as technology matures, the broader LiDAR market outlook remains highly promising.