Development of LiDAR-Detectable Black Materials via Various Strategies and Their Application as Eco-friendly Paints for Autonomous Driving Environments

초록

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors, which utilize near-infrared (NIR) lasers, are widely considered as essential components for autonomous vehicles due to their high resolution, positional accuracy, and ability to generate real-time 3D image. In spite of these advantages, LiDAR sensors face limitations in detecting black or dark-tone objects, owing to their inherent NIR-absorbing properties. Previous research on dark-tone LiDAR-detectable materials is prepared as monolayer coating employing inorganic material as both color and NIR-reflective layer or bilayer coating consisting of NIR-transparent dark-tone layer and white bottom layer. However, these approaches are unable to achieve a true blackness (L* < 20) and NIR reflectance (R% > 20, 905 nm) suitable for practical LiDAR applications. In this study, we report various strategies for the development of LiDAR-detectable black materials utilizing black TiO2, fulfilling both standard for blackness and NIR reflectance.