Velodyne Lidar has entered into an agreement with Ford Otosan to provide its Velarray H800 lidar sensors for product development and testing of autonomous heavy commercial trucks. Ford Otosan will use the sensors for safe navigation and collision avoidance in its next generation of vehicles.
The Velarray H800 is a compact, embeddable sensor that has been designed to provide automotive-grade performance and durability, and can be seamlessly integrated into both internal and external vehicle mounting locations, making it ideal for improved automated safety and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
The Velarray H800 provides excellent range, field of view and resolution, delivering the rich point cloud density required for high-resolution mapping and object classification. The sensor will help Ford Otosan to create advanced autonomous driving technology, addressing edge-cases for driving situations, including curving roads, potholes, intersections, on/off ramps, residential areas and roadways with unclear lane markings. It can easily detect vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and a variety of other objects both during the day and at night.
Ford Otosan is already using Velodyne’s Alpha Prime lidar sensors, which provide 360-degree surround-view perception technology to support autonomous mobility. The Alpha Prime is specifically designed to enable autonomous driving in complex conditions, including a wide variety of lighting conditions for travel up to highway speeds.
Burak Gökçelik, Assistant General Manager at Ford Otosan, commented: “Autonomous vehicle technology, powered by lidar, can bring multiple efficiency and safety benefits to the trucking industry. Our autonomous driving initiative with Velodyne looks to improve roadway safety by helping trucks understand and react to approaching road conditions and surroundings.”
Erich Smidt, Executive Director Europe at Velodyne Lidar, stated: “Ford Otosan has well-established commercial vehicle leadership in Europe and they act as the global engineering center for Ford Motor Company’s heavy commercial vehicles. We look forward to cooperating with Ford Otosan on autonomous driving development and learning from their use of the Velarray H800 in the trucking market.”
