BEIJING, China — Benewake has officially launched the NOVA20, a next-generation solid-state multi-point LiDAR designed for robotic platforms. As robots move from controlled environments into increasingly complex real-world applications, reliable close-range perception, obstacle avoidance, and human-robot safety have become critical requirements. NOVA20 focuses on the one-meter space around robots, providing direct physical distance sensing to address near-field perception challenges in existing robotic sensor architectures.
The Challenges of Near-Field Robot Perception
Current robotic perception systems face limitations in close -range scenarios:
- Blind Zones of 360° Spinning LiDAR:While conventional 360° spinning LiDARs excel at long-range mapping and global localization, their sensing coverage can be limited within tens of centimeters around the robot, leaving a gap in near-field safety perception.
- Occlusion and Lighting Limits in Vision:Cameras mounted on the head or torso can be occluded by the robot’s own chassis or articulating limbs. Furthermore, vision-based perception can be affected by challenging lighting conditions and requires compute-intensive processing.
- Coarse Resolution of Legacy Sensors:Ultrasonic and single-point infrared sensors offer limited measurement points, making it difficult to reliably resolve low-profile obstacles or sharp drop-offs.
How NOVA20 Addresses These Limitations
NOVA20 is designed to overcome these challenges through a compact solid-state sensing architecture.
- The sensor features a 20-point detection array with a 40° field of view, enabling multi-point distance sensing across a detection range of 0.05-1m (1m @ 10% reflectivity under 100 klux ambient light).
- Weighing less than 5g and consuming less than 1W of power, NOVA20 adopts a compact design with no mechanical moving components, enabling flexible deployment across different parts of robotic platforms, including the chassis, body, wrist, waist, knee, and ankle areas.
- NOVA20 supports operation under strong ambient light conditions up to 100 Klux and directly outputs physical distance information without generating 2D images, reducing unnecessary image data collection and host-level vision processing requirements.
By providing an independent near-field sensing layer, NOVA20 complements existing LiDAR and vision systems to improve robotic safety perception.
Primary Applications of NOVA20
- Lateral Edge-Following and Narrow Passages:Provides multi-point lateral distance measurements for AMRs, commercial cleaning robots, and robotic mowers, supporting more precise wall-following and reducing the risk of side collisions in narrow environments.
- Ground Edge Recognition and Anti-Drop:Detects negative obstacles, staircase edges, and sudden elevation drops for bipedal humanoids, quadrupeds, and wheeled platforms, helping reduce the risk of step-off accidents.
- Human-Robot Proximity and Pre-Contact Deceleration:Provides near-field distance measurements for delivery robots, patrol robots, and collaborative robotic platforms, supporting deterministic speed reduction before physical contact.
About Benewake
Founded in 2015, Benewake specializes in LiDAR technology and physical-world AI perception. The company has delivered more than 3 million units across over 90 countries, supporting developers and manufacturers in building safer robotic systems.
Organizations interested in technical integration, evaluation opportunities, or robotic platform collaboration can visit Benewake’s official website for more information.
Media Contact
Benewake (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Email: bw@benewake.com
Website: https://en.benewake.com/
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