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Spinoff story
Flash Lidar Enables Driverless Navigation
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
A special 3D imager, a global shutter flash lidar, is helping NASA sample an asteroid and could soon help cars safely navigate the road. With SBIR and other project funding from multiple centers including Langley Research Center, Santa Barbara, California based Advanced Scientific Concepts Inc. improved and tested global shutter flash lidar, which instantly creates a 3D map of its surroundings on a focal plane array with thousands of pixels. Today Continental AG, which bought the company, markets the technology for driverless cars, and the original team, as ASC LLC, sells it for military, commercial aerospace, and marine applications.