You've heard about the sensors in the news, when used in self-driving cars, and now you can have your own! Garmin's LIDAR-Lite V3 is the ideal high-performance (but compact) optical distant measurement sensor solution for drone, rovers, robots, or interactive project. Garmin makes high quality sensors, they're renowned for their GPS sensors, and these LIDARs are nice and high quality devices.
You can measure up to 40 meters away with laser-based sensor that draws only 130 mA during an acquisition. You can easily adjust between accuracy, operating range and measurement time using the I2C command set.
Compact, lightweight with low power consumption
Communication via I2C (recommended and PWM
True laser distance measurements - many sensors advertised as LIDAR are not really LIDARs
Note this LIDAR doesn't rotate around, it's just for measuring 'straight ahead', but it's really light and compact in comparison so when you don't need something that spins around this is a superior LIDAR.
You will need a microcontroller or microcomputer to connect to the I2C pins to read the distance values. In theory Garmin says you can take measurements at up to 500 Hz but that depends on how accurate you want the measurements. We got ~150Hz for most of our use cases.
Unit size (HxWxD): 40 x 48 x 20mm / 1.6" x 1.9" x 0.8"
Weight: 22g / 0.77oz
Resolution: 1cm
Accuracy: +/- 2.5cm at distances greater than 1 meter. Refer to manual for complete operating specifications.
Range: 5 cm to 40 meters
Update rate: up to 500 Hz
Interface: I2C or PWM
Power (operating voltage): 4.75-5 VDC; 6 V Max
Current consumption: 105ma, idle; 130ma, continuous
Operating temperature: -20 to 60° C
Laser wave length/Peak power: 905 nm/1.3 watts
Beam divergence: 8m Radian
Optical aperture: 12.5mm
Regulatory approvals: CLASS 1 LASER PRODUCT CLASSIFIED EN/EIC 60825-1 2014. This product is in conformity with performance standards for laser products under 21 CFR 1040, except with respect to those characteristics authorized by Variance Number FDA-2016-V-2943 effective September 27, 2016. System contains no user serviceable components. Repair or service of the system is only to be handled by factory trained technicians. No service by the user is allowed.
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