Lidar acts as a visual identifier of objects in a surrounding area. Once an object is "pinged", or detected, it will show as a dot of varying brightness intensity based on what the object is. Any metallic or man-made object will flash once pinged.
IRL-360 Infrared LIDAR
Standard-issue general-purpose Doppler LIDAR offers a good balance of resolution, range, and sweep frequency. -In-Game Description
Stock LIDAR for most ships. This LIDAR performs a full 360 degree sweep every 500 ms, allowing for quick coverage of the surrounding area, and is also capable of observing Doppler shifts of relative velocities.
MLF long-wave RADAR
Utilizing long-wave radar technology, this classical RADAR can pierce even the thickest ice formations and detect any metallic objects and vehicles hidden behind them. Sporting high resolution, this device is popular among both prospecting and rescue teams. Still, its low accuracy in detecting ice formations and slow scanning speed make it ill-suitable for general mining. -In-Game Description
The RADAR poses it's use in explicitly finding metallic objects. It holds much more precise readings, and only completes a full 360 sweep every 2 seconds, but allows for precise identification of ore nuggets and ships alike. The nature of the RADAR passes through rocks with higher water concentrations, as they faintly appear on the screen, but allow objects behind them to be seen, allowing for you to better find out where that one beryllium chunk went.
The RADAR does not have Doppler capabilities.
IRL-30-BF Beamformed Infrared LIDAR
This beam-formed infrared LIDAR offers superior resolution and detection speed by focusing the beam in a narrow cone in front of the ship. -In-Game Description
The Beamformed LIDAR is an interesting option in the range. It acts similarly to a standard IRL-360, except limiting the scanning range to a 30 degree cone centered at the front of the ship. Keeping the 500 ms sweep time, it is able to perform high-resolution scans in a fraction of a second, at the cost of being only able to see a narrower area around the ship. The cone angle is tunable between a 5 to 270 degree sweep angle, allowing for more or less to be observed within the scan range.
Runasimi High-Resolution LIDAR
A well-established high-resolution LIDAR designed for scientific missions offers superior scanning resolution, precise Doppler-shift detection, and increased onboard memory, but sacrifices detection speed in order to ensure high precision of all measurements. -In-Game Description
The High-Resolution LIDAR is a good option if you want to more precisely make out your surroundings, at the cost of being slower than a standard LIDAR fitting, taking 2 seconds to complete a 360 degree sweep.
CL-144PLA Phased LIDAR Array
A novel phase-shifting array approach to infrared LIDAR detectors presented by Coherent Light can direct its infrared laser beam in any direction without any mechanical elements. While the novel approach allows almost immediate threat detection and excellent coverage, the array cannot detect Doppler shifts, and its output is prone to ghosting artifacts. -In-Game Description
This LIDAR fitting removes the necessity of waiting for the sweep to pass an object, instead going for a more arbitrary approach of randomly scanning a direction. The lack of a need for the sweep cycle can effectively identify objects as they appear in the vicinity, making way to allow for faster escapes if the situation requires. The array however lacks any Doppler capabilities, and any scanned objects appear to have a "ghosting" artifact trail, as the marker takes a moment to disappear even after the object was scanned again.