by Angela Guess

A recent press release out of the company reports, “Velodyne LiDAR, Inc., the recognized global leader in Light, Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR technology, today announced the completion of a combined $150 million investment from co-investors Ford Motor Company and China’s leading search engine company Baidu, Inc. The investment will allow Velodyne to rapidly expand the design and production of high performance, cost effective automotive LiDAR sensors, accelerating mass adoption in autonomous vehicle and ADAS applications and therefore accelerating the critical, transformative benefits they provide.”

The release goes on, “Over the last decade, Velodyne developed four generations of hybrid solid-state LiDAR systems incorporating the company’s proprietary software and algorithms that interpret rich data gathered from the environment via highly accurate laser-based sensors to create high resolution 3D digital images used for mapping, localization, object identification and collision avoidance. Velodyne’s LIDAR solutions are capable of producing 300K to 2.2 million data points per second with a range up to 200 meters at centimeter-level accuracy. The Company’s high performance LiDAR technology has been recognized by global automotive OEMs and rideshare customers as a critical element enabling the development of fully autonomous vehicles.

Raj Nair, Ford Executive Vice President of Product Development and Chief Technical Officer, commented, “From the very beginning of our autonomous vehicle program, we saw LiDAR as key enabler due to its sensing capabilities and how it complements radar and cameras… Ford has a long-standing relationship with Velodyne and our investment is a clear sign of our commitment to making autonomous vehicles available for consumers around the world.”

Read more at BusinessWire.

Photo credit: Velodyne