Valeo Touts Road Safety in Next-Gen Lidar for Market Debut in 2024

Paris-based Valeo announced its third-generation scanning lidar technology for market debut in 2024, saying it will deliver new levels of road safety due to improved range, resolution and frame rate. The lidar reconstructs a 3D real-time image of the vehicle's surroundings at a rate of 4.5 million pixels and 25 frames per second, Valeo said. Resolution is 12 times that of the previous generation with range three times improved and viewing angle more than doubled, it said. The new lidar can see things that humans, cameras and radars can’t, the company said, enabling driving to be “delegated to the vehicle in many situations” including on the highway at speeds of up to more than 80 mph. The scanning lidar adapts to all light conditions and measures the density of raindrops to calculate the proper braking distance, said the company. It tracks nearby vehicles outside the driver's line of sight and uses algorithms to anticipate their trajectories and trigger necessary safety maneuvers, it said.