Lidar

LIDAR emerged just one year after Theodore Maiman fired the first laser at Hughes Aircraft Company in Malibu—an almost instantaneous recognition that coherent light could do what radar did with radio waves, but with far greater precision. Under Malcolm Stitch's direction, Hughes introduced the first lidar-like system in 1961 for satellite tracking, combining laser-focused imaging with precise distance measurement through time-of-flight calculations.

The adjacent possible had crystallized through Maiman's breakthrough. On May 16, 1960, his ruby laser produced the first coherent light in history—a beam where all photons traveled in perfect synchronization at identical wavelengths. Within months, engineers recognized the implications. Radar had revolutionized warfare and navigation by bouncing radio waves off targets and measuring return times. Laser light, with wavelengths thousands of times shorter, could achieve precision impossible for radio.

Hughes called their invention 'Colidar'—coherent light detecting and ranging—explicitly acknowledging the radar heritage. The first system tracked satellites, measuring distances to orbiting objects with unprecedented accuracy. The U.S. Army immediately recognized military applications; the first military laser rangefinder passed tests in 1961. By 1962, Hughes brought the first commercial lidar to market: the Mark II Colidar.

The Colidar Mark II, released in 1963, resembled a large rifle-mounted rangefinder with 11-kilometer range and 4.5-meter accuracy—remarkable for first-generation technology. Military targeting was the obvious application, but the technology's potential extended far beyond warfare.

Path dependence shaped lidar's trajectory through multiple application domains. Atmospheric research adopted lidar for studying aerosols and pollution in the 1960s. Surveying and mapping followed. Apollo astronauts left retroreflectors on the Moon; Earth-based lidar measured the Moon's distance to centimeter precision. Archaeology discovered that airborne lidar could penetrate jungle canopies to reveal hidden ancient cities.

The autonomous vehicle revolution transformed lidar's significance. When DARPA's 2005 Grand Challenge demonstrated that vehicles could navigate desert terrain using sensor fusion, lidar emerged as the critical perception technology. Its ability to generate precise 3D point clouds of the environment—measuring distance to every visible surface—provided the spatial awareness that cameras and radar couldn't match.

By 2026, lidar sensors have shrunk from truck-mounted instruments to solid-state chips small enough for smartphones. Velodyne, founded in 2005, dominated early autonomous vehicle lidar; dozens of competitors now drive prices from $75,000 per unit toward $100. The technology born from satellite tracking at Hughes in 1961 now enables the robotaxis beginning to navigate city streets—coherent light still detecting and ranging, sixty-five years after Maiman's first pulse.