Acuity Technologies Introduces Lightweight Multi-Return Lidar

July 30, 2020 Menlo Park CA – Today Acuity Technologies Inc. introduces its AL-500AIR Lidar, a compact line scanning range and image acquisition system. The long range version captures up to 4 returns at up to 300 meters and 200000 samples per second. Higher speed versions capture two returns out to 225 meters at 400000 samples per second or single returns out to 150 meters at 800000 samples per second.

The AL-500AIR is optimized for airborne mapping applications at altitudes up to 200 meters AGL. At 1.3 Kg, 6 to 50 watts and less than 12 inches long it is easily mounted on small multicopters and other UAS. It is also available in configurations for industrial use and continuous process control in fixed installations, and for mobile land applications.

The AL-500AIR is fully factory calibrated, with angular accuracy of 400 microradians and range accuracy of 8 mm. Point capture density is fully configurable up to 6667 points per line. The maximum scan rate is 300 lines per second with a field of view of 120 degrees. High speed scanning can capture 10 million points in 25 seconds, and the high resolution oversampling mode has 2 mm measurement resolution.

Signal strength and ambient light levels are acquired simultaneously with range data. Since the light level is captured point by point along with distance, no registration of the image is required and no mismatch occurs in dynamic scenes or mobile applications.

The AL-500AIR is derived from the AL-500, introduced in 2017. Like the AL-500, the AIR is controlled with Acuity’s Application Programming Interface for scanner operation and scan data collection. Source code for the API and a demonstration of its use are included with the AL-500AIR to speed development of scanning application software on any hardware platform.

The PointWorks interactive configuration and visualization program also included with the scanner is built on the Acuity API. This interface lets a user define the field of view, point density, and other scan parameters on a Windows system connected via a 100Mb ethernet link. Default scan configurations demonstrate the capabilities of the AL-500AIR and allow users to start collecting useful data immediately. Point clouds may exported in multiple standard formats.

Acuity Technologies has been developing laser measurement and scanning systems for industrial and aerospace applications since 1993. Acuity is focused on producing simple yet flexible 3D data acquisition systems for field applications, industrial processes and autonomous vehicles.