2020 BRN Discussion, page-24887

Thanks again rays. There have been some dots joined to Toyota. The following extract from one of your articles makes clear Toyota has had a deep interest in Lidar for a number of years:


“This report describes the trend of patent applications filed by companies in Japan for distance measurement and detection technology using LiDAR for vehicles (patent classification: G01S17/93).

The number of patent applications related to onboard LiDAR technology in Japan increased every year from 2010 to 2017. Although the number decreased in 2018, more than 200 applications were filed. Looking at the number of applications filed by each company, the number of applications is highest in the order of Denso, Toyota, Ricoh, Pioneer, and Koito Manufacturing. An analysis of the applicants of the top three companies in terms of the number of applications, using the "Technology Talent Search Service - StellaSearch" provided by TTDC (see “What is StellaSearch?” in the text below), shows that the inventors with the highest scores in both Ideas and Networks are Mr. Akira Sakai at Denso Corporation, Mr. Yasuhiro Hara at Toyota Motor Corporation, and Mr. Shuichi Suzuki at Ricoh Company, Ltd.”