Velodyne Lidar, Inc. announced it has joined the NVIDIA Metropolis program for Velodyne’s Intelligent Infrastructure Solution for traffic monitoring and analytics. 

NVIDIA Metropolis is designed to nurture and bring to market a new generation of applications and solutions that make the world’s most important spaces and operations safer and more efficient with advancements in AI vision.

The Intelligent Infrastructure Solution combines Velodyne’s award-winning lidar sensors and powerful AI software to monitor traffic networks and public spaces. The solution addresses the pressing need for smart city systems that can help improve road safety and prevent traffic accidents. 

Government data showed 2020 was the deadliest year for U.S. traffic crashes in over a decade, with a 7.2 percent increase in traffic fatalities over the previous year.

Velodyne’s solution leverages the powerful capabilities of the embedded NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier module in its edge AI computing system to run the solution’s proprietary 3D perception software, which can detect all road users including vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists in real time. 

The NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier provides unparalleled computing power of a GPU workstation in a compact, energy-efficient module. 

It powers the Intelligent Infrastructure Solution AI application to run up to 50 frames per second and process lidar frames in real time to detect, classify and extract traffic trajectory.

Being a part of NVIDIA Metropolis, Velodyne gains increased exposure to industry experts, AI-driven organizations, governments and integration partners looking to leverage world-class AI-enabled solutions to improve critical operational efficiency and safety problems. 

Velodyne also has early access to NVIDIA platform updates and can tap into NVIDIA’s diverse partner ecosystem to support lidar-based solution development.