Interested in autonomous vehicles and LiDAR? This video shows how to build an autonomous vehicle that finds its way around a room without bumping into objects thanks to its use of a low-cost two-dimensional LiDAR.

It starts, of course, by studying the principles of Light Detection And Ranging. For our experiments we used the X4 from Ydlidar.

The vehicle itself is a simple design with two motorized wheels in the center and two stand-offs on either end for remaining balanced. This arrangement makes the vehicle very agile. The motors are controlled by an ESP32 Pico Kit, which in turn is controlled over Bluetooth by a smartphone. The LiDAR data is processed by the ESP32 and used to steer the vehicle in the direction of the greatest distance, i.e. the object that is furthest away.

 
 
Rob Reynolds of SparkFun also made a video about LiDAR, but one dimensional.