I am surprised by the price range of Lidar applications considering the simplicity of the design. I try to make a simple project that requires lidar for object recognitions etc. I wouldn't like to use Visual Recognition such as OpenCV.
Regardless of that I am trying to understand why Lidar solutions are so expensive you can see that this http://velodynelidar.com/lidar/hdlproducts/hdl32e.aspx Small lidar sensor goes for 20,000$.
I strongly believe that Lidar is the next step in robotic applications but I am not sure why it is so EXCLUSIVE.
I have seen few projects that go for around 200$ but their performance is very bad.
I hope you can answer what makes a Lidar so expensive and what are some cheap systems a hobbyist can afford.