Scanse's “Sweep” Laser Rangefinder: Long Range and Affordable

Cheap laser rangefinders are absolutely an enabling technology for the next generation of robotics. I sincerely hope they can deliver.

FWIW I know one of the guys behind the Scanse LIDAR. Pretty sharp guy. I saw a demo a few days ago at the Homebrew Robotics Club. Pretty decent specs, although the minimum distance using the current software is a little on the long side -- at least 1/2 meter IIRC. The max distance is huge. They say this is a true time-of-flight LIDAR. IMHO this is an interesting unit and I am confident enough that I put in a Kickstart pledge. One interesting point is that the RPM is independent of the point update rate, so you can trade off resolution agains full-360-scan update rate. I have enough confidence in the founders and what I saw to believe I will get a decent unit, perhaps with minimal, reasonable, schedule slip (this stuff is hard).

Looks a lot like http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/RPLIDAR-360-degree-Laser-Sc...

I have been wanting one of these for years! Last time I looked into building my own robot, the lack of a low-cost LIDAR is the thing that held me back. Last time I looked, it was like $10k for similar functionality. This is a total game-changer. This will also be my first Kickstarter to back.