Optical Phased Array LiDAR Patents: Leaders & White Space 2026
- Filing has plateaued, not accelerated. activity peaked at 73 records in 2022 and has since declined, suggesting the field is consolidating claims rather than expanding them.
- Concentration is moderate, not dominant. the top five assignees hold 34.2% of all 409 records in scope, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants with room to differentiate.
- Optical control claims dominate the class mix. G02F (optical control & modulation) appears on 45.0% of records, well ahead of antenna-class filings at 8.6%, pointing to where the crowding actually sits.
Filing growth compares 2021 (54 records) with 2024 (32) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 409 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent landscape covers
Optical phased array (OPA) beam steering replaces mechanical scanning in LiDAR with electronically controlled phase shifts across an array of emitters, enabling solid-state beam direction without moving parts. The claim space spans chip-level waveguide design, phase calibration methods, sidelobe and grating-lobe suppression, and system integration with ranging electronics. This landscape draws on 409 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026, indexed by title, abstract and claim-description language matching optical phased array and solid-state beam steering terminology.
Publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, so the most recent filing year in this dataset understates real activity. Readers should treat the 2025 and 2026 figures as provisional floors rather than a true count.
Filing trends and technology composition
Two views of the same 409-record dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A peak in 2022, then decline
Filings rose from 34 in 2017 to a peak of 73 in 2022, then fell back toward 5 in 2026 (a partial year). The midpoint year matches the peak, which is a flat-to-declining trend rather than sustained growth — a signal that early movers have staked out core architectures and later filers are narrowing into specific implementation details.
Optical control and optics dominate the class mix
G02F (optical control & modulation) leads at 45.0% of the 409 records, with G02B (optical elements & systems) at 36.9% and G01S (radar, sonar & positioning) at 30.1% close behind. Antenna-class H01Q filings sit at just 8.6%, and AI-adjacent G06N filings at 2.0% — both comparatively open relative to the optical-control core.
Shares are the percentage of the 409 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Optical Phased Array Beam Steering for LiDAR with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about optical phased array beam steering for lidar and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited records in this dataset
Optical phased array chip with contra-directional coupler, optical phased array system and on-chip phase calibration method
Filed by SILITH TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. and published 2026-07-02, this record describes a multi-level beam-splitting architecture with thermo-optical phase shifters on each waveguide branch and a contra-directional coupler layered above or below the branch group, aimed explicitly at reducing chip size while preserving on-chip phase calibration.Abstract condensed from the published filing; see the full record for claim language.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20150378241A1 | Planar beam forming and steering optical phased array chip and method of using same | 223 |
| 2 | US20150346340A1 | Optical phased arrays | 214 |
| 3 | US20170371227A1 | Methods and Systems for Optical Beam Steering | 195 |
| 4 | US9753351B2 | Planar beam forming and steering optical phased array chip and method of using same | 142 |
| 5 | US20180039154A1 | Monolithically integrated large-scale optical phased array | 105 |
| 6 | US20190265574A1 | Methods and systems for optical beam steering | 101 |
| 7 | US9476981B2 | Optical phased arrays | 101 |
| 8 | US20180039153A1 | Two-dimensional optical phased array | 57 |
| 9 | US10261389B2 | Methods and systems for optical beam steering | 41 |
| 10 | US10627517B2 | Optical phased arrays | 41 |
Citation counts favour older records simply by virtue of longer exposure time; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three findings that shape where to file, litigate or license in this space.
Leadership without lock-out
The leading assignee holds 61 records and the fifth-place holder 15 — a real gap at the top, but the top 5 combined still account for only about a third of all filings. That leaves the majority of claim space spread across a long tail, which is unusual for a field this narrowly defined and suggests architectural approaches have not converged.
Filing has cooled since 2022
Volume climbed from 34 records in 2017 to a peak of 73 in 2022, then declined toward the present. Combined with the recency lag in publication, this looks less like a shrinking field and more like one where core mechanisms are settled and new filings are narrowing into specific calibration and fabrication details.
Optical control claims are the densest ground
Nearly half of all records touch G02F (optical control & modulation), and over a third touch G02B (optical elements & systems). Filing directly into either subclass without a clear differentiator means competing against the densest prior art in the dataset.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to optical phased array beam steering for lidar, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
The ranked leaders span specialist LiDAR and photonics firms alongside large diversified electronics and defense assignees, with academic institutions holding a meaningful share of early foundational filings.
A clear but not dominant leader
The top-ranked assignee holds 61 of the 409 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 15. That gap indicates sustained, deliberate filing rather than a single foundational patent family, but the leader's share of the total field remains well under half.
A wide field of entrants
The ranking returned by the dataset covers 100 assignees, from the leader down to single-digit filers. This breadth — rather than a two- or three-player market — is typical of a technology where chip fabrication approach, calibration method and system integration each open a separate patenting angle.
US and China lead filing venues
United States receiving-office filings lead at 179, with China at 71 and WIPO PCT filings at 49. Europe, India and Israel each hold smaller but non-trivial shares, indicating this is being prosecuted as a multi-jurisdiction technology rather than a single-market one.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Civan Advanced Technologies Ltd. | 3 | +200% |
| Analog Photonics LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Raytheon Company | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of Michigan | 0 | -100% |
| Quanergy Systems, Inc. | 0 | — |
| X Development LLC | 0 | — |
| Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| California Institute of Technology | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next questions depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, licensing, or R&D prioritization.
Map claim boundaries in the G02F core
With 45.0% of records touching optical control and modulation, a freedom-to-operate check should start here before any chip-level design commitment is made.
Explore claim structures in EurekaTrack the long tail for emerging entrants
The 100-assignee ranking shows filing spread well beyond the leaders — watch smaller filers moving into calibration and fabrication niches for early signals.
Set up assignee monitoring in EurekaAssess the under-claimed branches
Antenna-integration and AI-assisted calibration sit at the low end of the IPC composition — worth a deeper prior-art pull before committing R&D spend.
Run a white space search in EurekaCommon questions on optical phased array LiDAR patents
Within this 409-record dataset, one assignee leads with 61 records, well ahead of the fifth-ranked holder at 15. The ranking spans 100 assignees in total, so while there is a clear leader, ownership of the field is far from consolidated. A freedom-to-operate review should look beyond the leader to the several mid-tier filers holding double-digit record counts, since a diffuse field means multiple parties can each hold blocking claims in different sub-areas.
Filing volume rose from 34 records in 2017 to a peak of 73 in 2022, then declined toward the present, including a partial-year figure of 5 in 2026. That pattern points to a field that expanded then cooled rather than one still accelerating. Because publication lags filing by roughly eighteen months, the most recent two years understate real filing activity, but the multi-year decline from the 2022 peak is unlikely to be fully explained by that lag alone.
The dataset's records most frequently carry G02F (optical control & modulation, 45.0% of records), G02B (optical elements & systems, 36.9%), and G01S (radar, sonar & positioning, 30.1%). H01S (lasers), H04B (transmission) and H01Q (antennas) appear less often. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100%, and they should be read as overlap density rather than a mutually exclusive breakdown.
The comparatively low-density classes in this dataset are H01Q (antennas, 8.6% of records), G06N (AI-based computing, 2.0%) and G06F (digital data processing, 1.5%), all well below the 45.0% seen in the optical-control core. That gap suggests antenna-integrated emitter designs and AI-assisted or software-defined calibration methods are less crowded than waveguide and phase-shifter claims. Low density does not guarantee an easy grant, but it does mean less prior art to design around in first-pass drafting.
The top 5 assignees hold 140 of 409 records, or 34.2% of the field, and the top 10 hold 199 records, 48.7% of the field. That is meaningful concentration at the top but leaves roughly half of all filings distributed across a long tail of smaller entrants. Compared with fields where two or three players dominate outright, this is a moderately open competitive structure — useful context for licensing negotiations, since no single assignee can claim majority control.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.