By Stephen Nellis and Michael Martina

Dec 2 (Reuters) - Chinese-made lidar sensors could expose the U.S. military to hacking and sabotage during a conflict, according to a Washington think tank report released Monday that calls for a ban on putting those sensors into American defense equipment.

Lidar sensors use lasers to generate a digital three-dimensional map of the world around them. While most commonly found in driver-assistance systems in the automotive industry, they are also used in critical infrastructure such as ports, where they help automate cranes.

The U.S. military is also considering how to put the technology in autonomous military vehicles. But the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said in a report that lidar sensors, typically connected to the internet, use advanced processors that could allow for the concealment of malicious code or firmware backdoors that are difficult to detect.

Such "hardware trojans" could be exploited by China's government, which under Chinese law can force companies to comply with state security directives. Satellite-based laser systems could also be used to trip or disable such sensors in fractions of a second over broad swaths of U.S. territory, the foundation said.

"While Chinese LIDAR sensors may be cheaper, the obvious long term costs of sabotage and surveillance far outweigh the savings," Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the foundation and one of the report's authors, told Reuters.

The foundation recommended that U.S. lawmakers ban the procurement of Chinese lidar in defense gear and that U.S. state governments ban its use in critical infrastructure. The think tank also recommended that U.S. policymakers work with allied countries such as Germany, Canada, South Korea, Israel and Japan to create an alternative lidar supply chain to China.

While several prominent lidar suppliers such as Valeo, Luminar Technologies and Aeva Technologies are based in Europe or the United States, China has also become a major player in the industry with firms such as Hesai Group

.

The U.S. Department of Defense in October signaled it plans to put Hesai back on a list of companies it says work with the Chinese military.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Michael Martina in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

((Stephen.Nellis@thomsonreuters.com;))