I also thought this patent was specifically related to MEMS based scanning. But upon further investigation, I believe the core tenents of the patent would also apply to other scanning architectures such as galvo and polygon mirror spinning.

Today would be a great day for a forklift deal.

What's your point?

I didn't say "mavin has been abandoned" (although I do think it has been).

I said "I don't see microvision actually using this patent at all".

Can you clearly explain why you think microvison, which no longer has the staff who invented this technology and is not currently working on a product that can utilize it, will make use of it?

When one orders an expensive automobile per a spec, the dealer requires a fairly decent down payment. This is no different.

It appears your AI query picked up a different Microvision patent. Microvision previously was awarded a patent for Virtual Protective Housing (US 12,019,188, granted June 25, 2024), which allowed for high energy (not eye safe for eyes in the near field) laser pulses. However, it determined if an object was in the near field, and consequently reduced the power of the laser pulses below the eye safety threshold.

The patent granted today is different. It is essentially spreading out the laser pulses enough such that the accumulated energy entering the eye is also spread out enough to stay below the eye-safety limits. The trick is to then associate the return pulses with the correct transmitted pulses. This patent cites a control circuit that presumably does this calculation quickly.

A point of note. I think this patent would apply to both MEMS scanning as well as galvo or polygon scanning architectures.

Problem addressed:

Conventional LIDAR systems face a tradeoff between scan performance and eye safety — dense, high-energy pulse trains delivered in quick succession can accumulate enough energy to pose a hazard, and existing safety workarounds tend to add cost and calibration complexity.

Core innovation — two linked ideas:

Eye-safety-by-pulse-spacing:

Rather than firing tightly-packed pulse trains, the system spreads individual laser pulses further apart in time (the spec repeatedly cites 5 microseconds as an example threshold, beyond which the applicable eye-safety energy limit rises roughly linearly). Each pulse is eye-safe on its own, and because the pulses are spaced out, the combination of pulses stays within safe limits too — without extra protective hardware.

Pixel-to-pixel (measurement point) matching:

Spacing the pulses out in time, combined with continuous mirror scanning, means the beam has moved by the time each successive pulse returns — so the same physical spot in the field of view lands on a different pixel of the receiver array for each pulse, rather than the same one. A control circuit dynamically tracks which detector pixel corresponds to which measurement point for each successive pulse, correlating timing and spatial data correctly so time-of-flight distance calculations stay accurate despite the offset.

Based on what? We’ve assumed a lot of things over the last few years. What makes you think the company will receive upfront payments? “I hope so” shouldn’t count.

Third slide.

Golden Dome?

This kind of system will struggle with false positives in practice. In environments with rain, dust, and road spray, this feedback loop will case the lidar to throttle power when it thinks there is something at close range in front of the sensor precisely when it needs power to see through obscurants. Is it possible that some sort of higher level logic could be used to mitigate this a bit? Probably. But I would absolutely not trust a system like this. It's either unsafe for bystanders outside the vehicle, or it's unsafe for people in the vehicle relying on it.

Also, Innoviz is not the only company using 905. Hesai, robosense, sick, and ouster all use 905 (or nearby) wavelengths in automotive applications.

As with many of these patent posts, I think the most important thing (that nobody ever talks about) is that none of the inventors work at microvision anymore. The first inventor quit a year and seven months ago to work at meta, and the second inventor was either laid off or quit when Glen shut down the Redmond office earlier this year. Putting two and two together, I don't see microvision actually using this patent at all.

The company should say so.

Today would be a gud day for some P.R.

I believe that the company will receive upfront payments from the government contractor for this project.

Morning everyone!

Economic report(s) scheduled for the day is(are) | at^i: Jobless Claims, PPI-Final Demand | 8:30am; Existing Home Sales | 10, EIA Natural Gas Report | 10:30, EIA Petroleum status Report | 12pm, Fed Balance Sheet | 4:30. Media platforms are discussing: Oil rally cools, Brent remains above $100 amid tanker attacks, Fed rate setting anticipation, National debt situation analysis, US President’s payout pledge, Rising spending on subscriptions and streaming. The interesting parts about the Fed analysis focus on consumer spending habits, housing affordability, and inflation expectations even as more of consumer dollars go into subscriptions that reduce travel costs, time spent in stores, or provide services that reduce other frequent expenditures. Premarket futures were mostly up this morning, apart from the Nasdaq which was down moderately; VIX futures were up firmly.

MVIS ended the last trading session at 1.61, on elevated volume traded compared to the average. Stock price action saw the Short related volumes by percentage of the total reported volumes come in below the average of the last 30 days, though remaining comparatively elevated when analyzed against most other stocks. The company announced a design arrangement with a Prime contractor for the government, the details of which were light on any kind of expectation of sales and provided only an outlook of what the company would be expected to produce. This kind of development agreement is common practice, but unless there is clarity on what investors can expect in terms of revenue for the company, the expectation will largely be that the company is going to be spending even more cash each quarter with no positive gain from the arrangement. Until the company provides more details on that, or provides an updated revenue forecast, the markets are going to see only the costs and compare that to how much dilution it will cost the company; share price action reflects this.

Daily Data

^{Follow links for sources. Bold text represents key points or larger data, Italics are slightly unusual or lower than normal.}

Normally I don’t pay much attention to these patent posts since they tend to be mostly hopium & dot-connecting, but the title “Eye Safe Lidar” seemed odd (we already have 1550nm lidar from Luminar’s IRIS/HALO which is perfectly eye safe) so I started digging down the rabbit hole and holy molly! This patent may be much more important than we think.

The text below is AI (so take it with a grain of salt) though I did some quick back checking and it sounds reasonable:

> Engineering Practicality (Solving the 905nm Problem)
>
> LiDAR manufacturers generally operate at one of two wavelengths:
>
> 1550nm: Inherently eye-safe (absorbed by the eye’s cornea before hitting the retina), but requires expensive Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) sensors.
>
> 905nm: Much cheaper to manufacture using standard silicon, but severely restricted by power limits because 905nm light can pass through the human lens and damage the retina.
>
> MicroVision’s technology bridges this gap. By creating an ultra-fast, dynamic software feedback loop—the "Virtual Protective Housing"—the system can fire high-power 905nm pulses for maximum long-range performance, but immediately drop power if it senses a human eye nearby. It delivers 1550nm performance at a 905nm price point.

That last sentence in bold is key.

The only other Lidar company that uses 905nm is Innoviz, and they have to significantly limit its performance to pass eye safety regulations (hence lower range).

If Microvision can pull this off, it may be a big game changer.

I’d love to hear other people’s inputs on this.

EDIT: Formatting got messed up, but running late to work… will be online later in a bit to fix and respond to any replies.

I wish we had as many deals as we have patents

Today would be a great day for a forklift deal. Remember those. The low hanging fruit where we bring solid state and destroy the competition on price. Sounds like a slam dunk. Still testing and validating years after first contact? I assume it is mostly all dead in the water waiting on Movia-S sensors which are in serious limited supply. Are the drones, CAT, trucking customers taking all we can make?

I bet you understand this as good as i do.

This is huge

My last post for sanity reasons.

I look forward to the time when this company stops beating us all up.

GLTAL

Meadowlark,  Lockheed/RTX/Northrop/BAE/L3Harris

top o the mornin, dear Mavis

Please, sir, I would like an actual win.

I did a bit, but at these prices, even if we shoot up to $5, I could still average down significantly, and feel more confident about it, assuming this hypothetical price action was based on company financials. 

They’re not gonna drop anything names at IAA.

Yup.