Self-driving vehicles may take a long time to hit the road in large numbers. The sensors driving much of their progress, however, are starting to go mainstream.
Lidar technology is trickling into human-driven vehicles in some cases. In others, it's finding scale in different industries.
The latest example of lidar for human-driven vehicles came earlier this week when Volvo unveiled its EX90, which contains the first fruits of its five-year collaboration with lidar provider Luminar. A standard front-facing lidar unit will underpin driver-assist features in the crossover.
With distinctive shapes resembling spinning chicken buckets or hockey pucks, lidar units once symbolized self-driving ambitions. Volvo's designers fashioned a far more subtle integration of Luminar's Iris lidar unit into the EX90's roofline.
It signals a shift into a new era — just not the one initially expected. But waiting for self-driving vehicles to materialize wasn't just the…