Episode 357: Ouster brings lidar to warehousing

Joining this episode of The New Warehouse is Angus Pacala, Co-founder and CEO of Ouster, a company that provides lidar technology for automation and sensing. Angus discusses the warehouse use cases for lidar and how it aids in navigation, delivery of goods, and mapping warehouses. He also discusses the age-old question of the camera versus lidar sensing and which one you can trust with your life.

Key Takeaways

• LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging, which emits light pulses to measure distances between objects. AGVs can use this data to detect obstacles safely as they move through warehouses or manufacturing environments. Angus adds, there is over 2 billion worth of industrial lidar sensors sold each year. A significant portion of those sensors is for automated vehicles operating in warehouses, manufacturing centers, and other mixed-use environments.
• Angus shares a new type of more affordable and performant lidar sensor developed by Ouster called digital lidar. Digital Lidar replaces the analog technology used for years by integrating complex analog systems onto one silicon chip, resulting in improved performance, size, form factor, power draw reliability, and affordability.
• With Digital Lidar, customers of Ouster can have better resolution with no blind spots allowing them to sense humans further out more reliably and build great maps of warehouses. Digital Lidar also enables mixed-use warehouses where machines can operate closer to humans due to their better sensing capabilities while maintaining safety standards.
• Regarding autonomous equipment in warehousing, Angus noted two approaches – human assistance driver technology (similar to cars) or complete automation when scoped correctly – both are becoming more flexible, faster to deploy, and affordable for diverse use cases.

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