Volvo has among its ranks a SUV up to technology, the Ex90. Presented in 2023, it is the electrical alternative to the classic XC90, presuming systems such as the Autonomous Level 3 SAE driving or the equipment of a radar Lidar to detect elements of your environment.
What perhaps they had not told you is that, precisely, the lidar sensors of greater capabilities are the archNiene of our usual partner: the smartphone.
You can leave you the fried camera. Volvo warns him in his own Support page: Lidar light waves can damage external cameras. The technical explanation is brief, but the message is clear.
“Do not point a camera directly when Lidar. Lidar, being a laser -based system, uses infrared light waves that can cause damage to certain camera devices. This can include smartphones or phones equipped with a camera.”
Although it sounds like a warning, perhaps something alarming, there are already those who have shown in real time how a lidar can instantly disintegrate the pixels of a mobile sensor.
They are not color. They are supposedly fried pixels after burning when aiming at a lidar.
The lucky one. In Volvo’s subform in Reddit A video has been viralized in which it can be seen how, when recording the lidar of this electric car, the sensor pixels are gradually burned.
Reddit is Reddit and no one can ensure the authenticity of the video, but if we understand the theory behind that a lidar can disintegrate a camera, all the pieces begin to fit perfectly.
Your camera sensor. Smartphones use sensors that not only capture visible light (spectrum of 380 to 750 Nm), they are also especially sensitive to near infrared (750 to 1100 nm). In fact, they usually come equipped with an infrared cutting filter in charge of mitigating this light and preventing it from affecting the final result.
These filters usually block most infrared light, but they are not perfect. An easy test to do at home is to aim with a TV command to the camera of your mobile. That purple flash that you see is proof that smartphones cameras let infrared light.
Destroying pixels. The infrared light emitted by a command has barely power, is emitted in a standard frequency of between 850 and 950 nanometers. What happens to the Lidar del Volvo Ex90? That emits pulsed lasers of 1550 nma wavelength in the middle infrared.
This is still invisible to the human eye, but it is a considerable power. If a lidar laser with enough power points directly to a CMOS sensor, it can end up saturating the pixels of it. In other words, it can cause permanent damage and load the pixels that have received their emission of light.
A phenomenon studied. Although the Lidar del Volvo Ex90 has put this problem on the table, this is a problem that we have been dragging for more than 20 years. In 2004, studies such as “Lase-Induced Damage Thresholds in Cmos and CCD Sensors ” The destruction of both individual pixels and complete columns after being exposed to compact laser systems was shown.
It was highlighted how in wavelengths between 800 and 1,600 Nm (just the latter is the one that caresses Volvo), the damage is irreversible and there is no possible physical defense for infrared protection filters.
Lidar in the Volvo Ex90
Volvo is not the only one who warns. Smartphones are not the only devices in using CMOS sensors: the vast majority of consumption miral cameras use this technology. Any manual warnsbefore even starting to explain how the camera works, not directly notice with a laser to the sensor.
“When you make Tomas backwards, keep the sun sufficiently far from the viewing angle. Always maintain intense light sources, such as sun, laser or artificial light sources, outside and far from the image area. The concentrated strong light could produce smoke or damage the image sensor or other internal components.”
At the moment, Volvo is one of the few companies that, together with Luminar (the company behind its Lidar technology) has detailed the emission of laser pulses in this type of radars. It is expected, however, with the democratization of the Lidar (especially in future cars that will come from China), we have to get used to these power figures.
Image | Volvo
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