Velodyne Joins Nvidia Metropolis Project

At the recently concluded Smart City Event, we unpacked the new paradigm of the Smart City.  As concept turns into reality, there are some interesting initiatives and partnerships coming to the fore.

This week, Nvidia announced Velodyne Lidar is joining the Nvidia Metropolis program with the Velodyne Intelligent Infrastructure Solution (IIS) for traffic monitoring and analytics.

The Nvidia Metropolis program provides a partner ecosystem, developer toolkit and application framework to empower the next generation of smart city solutions. The Velodyne IIS brings together artificial intelligence software and lidar sensors to promote road safety. Specifically, the Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier module provides the edge AI computing system the capability to run 3D perception software and enable detection of pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles in real time.

Velodyne’s IIS will be first put to the test in Austin, Texas at a location of frequent accidents to showcase the smart city solution’s efficacy.

“It is great to be working with the city of Austin on innovation initiatives that will certainly transform roadways into smarter, safer infrastructure for the community,” explained Jon Barad, Vice President of Business Development of Velodyne,. “Partnering with NVIDIA Metropolis allows us to help these communities and others address road safety challenges and improve traffic efficiency and sustainability.”

Lidar is not new, but as we introduce 3D perception and intelligence at the edge continues to grow, it is a new day in the smart city.

How smart is your city?