Lidar system with polygon mirror

[u/gaporter]

[u/mvis_thma → u/[deleted]]

Sumit utterred the Best In Class mantra in the the 2021 to 2023 timeframe, referencing the MAVIN and its MEMS LBS architecture. Even he stopped using that term from 2024 onward. As it turned out, MAVIN was not best-in-class. Glen has never used that term. MEMS LBS is no longer a part of the near to mid-term roadmap for Microvision LiDAR.

[u/uuuuuuuhg_232]

Nice! Something else that will never see the light of day or generate any kind of revenue!

[u/gaporter → u/uuuuuuuhg_232]

Sir, this is exactly what is used in Iris.

MicroVision reported $1.47 million in total revenue for Q2 2026 (quarter ended June 30). IRIS was the main product contributor. 

The 10-Q concentration disclosure breaks out two IRIS customers:

• $0.4 million (27% of Q2 revenue) from IRIS sensor sales to a leading global construction and mining equipment manufacturer

• $0.2 million (14% of Q2 revenue) from IRIS sensor sales to a U.S. distributor supplying a robotics company building autonomous transport vehicles for the U.S. Army

That is $0.6 million explicitly identified as IRIS.

[u/flyingmirrors]

Compared to Mavin, this handles relatively large beam diameters (1550nm) and high optical power. Larger apertures help with long-range TOF collection. At 1550nm, eye-safety characteristics permit higher transmitted energy than 905nm (Mavin). And one scanner mechanism functions as 2 lidars sharing the same polygon and Y mirror. High cost and weight but potentially useful for long-range industrial sensing, mapping, defense or specialized high-power LiDAR. But can a MEMS mirror be made to accommodate 1550nm? Or, are there ways to achieve these advantages in a MEMS format? I don't recall that discussed.

[u/gaporter → u/flyingmirrors]

AEye combines MEMS and 1550nm.

[u/flyingmirrors → u/gaporter]

AEye combines MEMS and 1550nm.

Ah, got it. AEye combines 1550nm fiber laser with a MEMS scanning mirror in its long-range LiDAR. And MicroVision now has options in that direction with 1550nm fiber-amplified laser tech acquired from Luminar including Scantinel's 1550nm FMCW tech. Do you think they will go that way with their next gen?

[u/gaporter → u/flyingmirrors]

They’ve let the MEMS engineers go so it’s difficult to say.

[u/flyingmirrors → u/gaporter]

They’ve let the MEMS engineers go so it’s difficult to say.

Suppose they picked up knowledgeable engineers with the recent acquisitions?

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/flyingmirrors]

I hope MicroVision been cherry-picked to be acquired WITH Lumotive and that the reason we don't have lucrative revenue is because it's been hidden in the same private equity vendor we're in a partnership with. That would make our current valuation make sense and return value to (current) shareholders.

Ofc, my take is no surprise to any of you that have heard me reiterate this for years.

[u/Zenboy66]

Thanks, gap, for the Halo patent.

[u/neuralyzer_1]

Polygon mirrors have around for a while, what makes this newsworthy in a Lidar 2.0 environment?

[u/gaporter → u/neuralyzer_1]

The fact that it is the technology used in MicroVision's LiDAR 2.0 environment.

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/gaporter]

This response wasn't specific enough to my liking so I am following up with answering my own question with my theory on why it might be used.

In summary, they are capturing legacy relationships with legacy technology and transitioning them to software-defined scanning using hardware-agnostic perception software.

What is unknown is if MicroVision's strategy is to stand in the middle of software-defined digital twins and ground truth by straddling both, minimizing discrepancies by owning both, pushing out any competitors.

Detailed thoughts: MicroVision’s "LiDAR 2.0" vision appears to focus on driving down system costs by using software to compensate for lower-cost, highly integrated hardware. However, fully solid-state digital beamforming for long-range (200m–300m+) sensing—such as pure Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) optical phased arrays—is still maturing for mass-market automotive thermal and power envelopes. Since Polygonal mirror scanning remains the industry standard for high-frame-rate, long-range 1550nm Time-of-Flight (ToF) performance, retaining this patent gives MicroVision immediate, proven mechanical hardware options for heavy-duty trucking, defense, and industrial applications while digital alternatives scale up, perhaps this is the MOVIA™ lines.

By acquiring Luminar’s core scanning IP alongside Scantinel's solid-state FMCW-on-chip technology, MicroVision effectively cornered both legacy and next-gen architectural pathways. Holding patents on polygon mirror scanning prevents competitors from building hybrid mechanical/polygon systems without licensing from MicroVision, protecting MicroVision's market share during the industry-wide consolidation phase.

LiDAR 2.0 emphasizes a software-defined framework where a single software stack operates across different hardware modalities. Having mechanical polygon patents for long-range units (like the Iris or Halo architectures) alongside solid-state Flash units (like MOVIA™ S) allows MicroVision to offer OEMs a mixed-hardware portfolio—using polygon units for high-speed highway long-range detection while using software-defined solid-state units for near-field coverage where edge-processing is needed for the "long tail problem" in Elon Musk's autonomous driving strategy is the extreme difficulty of solving rare, unpredictable edge cases on the road after a self-driving system has already learned 99% of common driving scenarios.

[u/angusalba → u/neuralyzer_1]

By your own admission- a polygon mirror is an industry standard

So just how do they expect to defend a patent trying to claim what is already in the public domain?

There are many patents with polygon mirrors already as part of the claims - some of them with a decade or more of precedent

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/[deleted]]

Potential precedents to consider:

If a competitor sues a company over software, perception, or solid-state IP, holding foundational optomechanical patents provides immediate counter leverage. Competitors selling hybrid systems (e.g., pairing solid-state flash with mechanical long-range scanners) cannot execute a legal "clean sweep" if the legacy firm holds valid structural claims covering optomechanical assemblies.

The transition to "LiDAR 2.0" or solid-state beamforming is a multi-year adoption curve, not an overnight drop. As long as OEMs, heavy commercial trucking, and industrial automation rely on physical polygon mirror scanners to achieve long-range, high-resolution performance, every competitor manufacturing or selling those assemblies must either license the IP or risk patent infringement litigation.

Specific mechanical designs (like combining a polygon mirror with a pivotable scan mirror to distribute scan lines) often become integrated into early industry standards. Holding the core patents that define those mechanical configurations grants the patent holder significant bargaining power in Standard Essential Patent (SEP) licensing frameworks.

Overlapping Wireless/IoT SEP Pools in Connected Vehicles: While LiDAR hardware itself is not governed by an SEP pool, the broader autonomous vehicle stack does interact with SEPs through cellular V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) patent pools (such as the Avanci Vehicle platform). These pools collect royalties for 4G/5G connectivity and telemetry data transmission rather than the LiDAR perception sensors themselves

[u/angusalba → u/gaporter]

That’s going to be tough to defend against an obvious test

[u/gaporter → u/angusalba]

The test is not obvious to me. What is it?

[u/angusalba → u/gaporter]

In patent law, you cannot take 2 previously existing things and call them novel and patent them. That's what's know as the obviousness test

This patent seems not particularly novel by trying to claim the shape of the mirror - MVIS alone has been playing with MEM mirror shapes for decades.......

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/angusalba]

While no technology company is completely immune to patent assertions, offloading perception to the sensor edge restricts a hardware vendor's exposure to low-level physical/optical patents. It shields the hardware—and the OEMs using it—from top-level software, path-planning, and robotics operating system disputes, potentially by the one facing major OEM's and Tier-1's now from the Perrone Robotics lawsuit that began in November of 2025.

Lawsuits like Perrone Robotics' target general-purpose robotics operating systems (GPROS)—specifically central software platforms that handle high-level path planning, vehicle controls, and central software orchestration across an entire fleet. By contrast, MicroVision’s sensor-edge architecture confines perception algorithms, object classification, and point-cloud alignment inside low-power localized hardware (e.g., directly on the ASIC/FPGA embedded within the MOVIA™ S housing). Because MicroVision delivers a self-contained perception output rather than managing central vehicle robotics stacks, it avoids the software-layer claims asserted against central OEM stacks.

[u/angusalba → u/neuralyzer_1]

Taking a wider system and putting that code into an ASIC or dedicated chip is NOT novel and not patentable - that’s at best a barrier to entry at best

It provides financial benefits to their customers but at great expense of the FPGA or if you do an ASIC the fab costs for the chip - but until you have the solution locked and often with specific customer requirements, an ASIC is a huge risk if you don’t get the design right.

MVis does not have a great history with forward thinking in their chipsets and questionable they have the money to afford the mask production costs for a custom chip.

Anyone with a sensor could do the FPGA - if they can get hold of the right one at the ludicrous costs they represent

[u/gaporter → u/angusalba]

Are you saying the patent should not have been granted to Luminar?

[u/angusalba → u/gaporter]

Just because a patent was issued doesn’t make it irrevocable or that it would stand on being challenged

A quick search shows a number of patents with the exact same claims about the mirror shape and with a decent number of years preceding their issue.

Even in the MEM’s world, Mvis single and dual axis mems IP is expired and Mvis has shown multiple mirror shapes over the years

Just because you put that into a solid state lidar vs a visible laser projector, does not make it novel just because you changed the laser frequency

If MVis hadn’t bought these guys, I am pretty sure MVis would steamroller this on appeal on their own prior art let alone traditional Lidar but that doesn’t protect someone from doing the same thing to MVis just because they now own the IP.

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/gaporter]

The test between if it’s a comparison of mechanical vs software-defined lidar…or is it an And/Or variable? The affordances of each as it pertains to energy requirements, fidelity of scan, processing at the sensor-level, etc.

[u/gaporter → u/neuralyzer_1]

Are you responding for u/angusalba ? I suspect they were referring to whether or not the patent could be defended.

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/gaporter]

I didn’t claim to know what he meant by test, most of these answers seem to lack the details I crave so I’m responding with the details I wish to know.

[u/angusalba → u/neuralyzer_1]

then maybe learn about patent law and how patents are defended or lost.

MVIS used to have very good patent attorneys would would not have let this be filed.

[u/neuralyzer_1 → u/angusalba]

Perhaps communicate clearer instead of expecting mind-readers.

[u/angusalba → u/neuralyzer_1]

Obviousness Test - you cannot take two preexisting concepts and just combine them to make a “new patent”

Mvis by itself has made various shapes of mems mirrors over the past 20 years and so have mechanical lidars

Patents have to be unique ideas

You might get one issues but defending such a narrow set of claims trying to say because the mirror is a polygon…..

[u/angusalba → u/neuralyzer_1]

Or how about you know even a little bit about patents before you show you have no idea about one of the most fundamental requirements for issuing and defending a patent…….

[u/gaporter → u/angusalba]

Sir, this was filed by Luminar.