Ouster’s new REV7 Sensors doubles Range with L3 Digital LiDAR Chip
Ouster, Inc., a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors for the automotive, industrial, robotics, and smart infrastructure industries, announced the launch of its newest OS series scanning sensors, REV7, powered by its next-generation L3 chip.
REV7 features the all-new OSDome sensor, as well as upgraded OS0, OS1, and OS2 sensors that deliver double the range, enhanced object detection, increased precision and accuracy, and greater reliability.
“The promise of digital lidar is that year after year, with new chips like L3, our customers benefit from an ever-improving lineup of sensors that follows the exponential performance path of Moore’s Law,” said Ouster CEO Angus Pacala. “Digital lidar never stops improving – and doubling the range of our existing sensors while adding the OSDome is truly unprecedented, and is only possible with a digital architecture. REV7 is our biggest leap forward in performance and features yet, and positions us to serve a wider set of use-cases and win new customers in all of our target verticals.”
The Next-Generation Digital Lidar L3 Chip
REV7 is powered by Ouster’s next-generation L3 chip, a fully custom and proprietary system-on-chip that brings back-side-illumination technology, the same imaging technology that revolutionized the digital camera industry, to the high-performance lidar industry for the very first time.
The L3 chip boasts 125 million transistors and a maximum computational power of 21.47 GMACS, bringing even better digital signal processing and more features to customers than ever before. With the improved on-chip processing, the L3 is capable of counting approximately 10 trillion photons per second and produces up to 5.2 million points per second.
Introducing the REV7 OS Series
Ouster’s REV7 sensors see more than ever before, over longer ranges, and with greater precision for improved mapping, more accurate obstacle detection, and safer autonomous operations both indoors and outdoors.
Upgrades to the REV7 sensors increase their maximum operating temperature, reduce their power draw, and double their resistance to shock and vibration while maintaining the same small, light-weight, and power-efficient form factor design of previous generations. With approximately 95% automotive-grade components, Ouster’s REV7 sensors are purpose built for production-scale fleets.
REV7 OS Series Highlights
- Powered by new backside-illuminated L3 chip with 10x increase in photon sensitivity
- 2x range increase across all sensors, up to 200m at 10% reflectivity
- High resolution for short, mid, and long-range applications
- Increases maximum operating temperature by +10° C
- 1000BASE-T1 automotive ethernet now available
With the extended range of REV7, we are unlocking an all-new category of long-range and higher-speed use-cases, essential for many robotaxi, shuttle, bus, and truck operators. Not only does the REV7 OS2 achieve over 200 meters range on 10% reflective objects, but it now has a maximum range of over 400 meters, opening up the unique ability to track vehicles and objects beyond a quarter mile in all directions.
With the 10x signal improvement of the L3 chip, REV7 can better detect objects closely surrounding the vehicle as well as at a distance. Automotive and industrial customers alike can expect incredible detection performance on challenging objects such as tires, black cars, cables, fencing, or the forks on a forklift. These same benefits make REV7 an excellent fit for mapping.
The All-New OSDome Sensor
The OSDome introduces a new hemispheric field-of-view for comprehensive coverage and detection in industrial and smart infrastructure applications. Packaged in a uniquely small form-factor, the OSDome can be installed discreetly in the body of a vehicle or on the ceiling of a building.
By removing the blind spot on the top of the sensor, customers can now monitor wide zones with a single sensor, simplifying installations and reducing system complexity.
OSDome Sensor Highlights
- Hemispherical 180° FOV for floor-to-ceiling coverage
- 128 channels of vertical resolution
- 20m range (10% reflectivity) for wide area coverage
- High-precision dual returns for enhanced object detection
- Privacy-safe, accurate people tracking
Within the industrial vertical, the OSDome delivers floor-to-ceiling vertical visibility to autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) operating in warehouses, which have historically struggled to detect objects directly below or overhead. In the smart infrastructure market, the OSDome is designed to augment or replace CCTV and thermal cameras. Whether it’s monitoring a retail store for occupancy and dwell time or a secure data center for intruders in a keep-out zone, the OSDome offers the ability to cover a wide area with accurate 3D object classification and tracking.
Ouster’s REV7 sensors powered by the L3 chip are available to order today, with the first units expected to ship to customers in Q4 2022.
