Development of Low-Cost 'Autonomous Vehicle Eyes'... Harmless to Human Eyes

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] A sensor technology that can serve as the eyes of autonomous vehicles at a low cost without being harmful to the human body has been developed.

The National Research Foundation of Korea announced that the research teams of Professor Jonghyun Ahn at Yonsei University and Professor Jaedong Lee at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology have developed a LiDAR optical sensor technology for obstacle detection, one of the core technologies of autonomous vehicles, and the related paper was introduced in the international journal Science Advances on the 30th (local time).

The research teams fabricated an ultrathin silicon semiconductor with a thickness of less than 10 nanometers using their own technology. They also developed an optical sensor capable of detecting short-wave infrared by altering the electronic structure of silicon through deformation control technology. Although silicon is hard and brittle, the teams overcame this by manufacturing ultrathin silicon semiconductors at the nanoscale.

The optical sensor developed by the research teams is highly economical. It is expected to replace the expensive InGaAs compound semiconductors currently used as optical sensors in existing autonomous vehicles. Additionally, this optical sensor utilizes short-wave infrared that does not harm human eyes.

The research teams expressed their expectation that the newly developed silicon optical sensor can be applied to autonomous vehicles and various security devices.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.