[tennysont]

Follow up question that you might know: would multiple LIDAR sensor actually be additive like that? If you can stand a foot away from a car's LIDAR sensor and be unharmed, then can't you have:

  | Distance | # of Sensors |
  | 1        |            1 |
  | 3        |            9 |
  | 5        |           25 |
  | 10       |          100 |
  | 25       |          625 |
  | 50       |         2500 |
  | 100      |        10000 |

x^2 sensors at x feet from you and have the same total energy delivered? If sensors are actually safe to look at from 6in or 3in, then multiple the above table by 4 or 16.

It seems like, due to the inverse square law, the main issue is how close you can get your eye to a LIDAR sensor under normal operation, not how many sensors are scattered across the environment. The one exception I can think of is a car that puts multiple LIDAR arrays next to each other (within a foot or two). But maybe I'm misunderstanding something!