Velodyne Lidar Calls for Action to Improve Pedestrian Safety
20.10.2020 15:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Velodyne Lidar, Inc. (Nasdaq: VLDR) today published a white paper that calls for independent performance testing of driver assistance systems to be expanded to include dark nighttime scenarios. The change would address a gap in current testing protocols that primarily looks at daytime conditions and largely overlooks the risks to pedestrians from driver assistance systems that perform poorly in dark nighttime conditions.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201020005335/en/
Side by side comparison of images produced by automotive camera and Velodyne’s Velarray lidar in dark conditions with streetlights and low beam headlights. (Graphic: Velodyne Lidar, Inc.)
The white paper, called “Improving Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking (PAEB) in Dark, Nighttime Conditions,” can be downloaded here.
Over 6,000 pedestrians are killed every year in traffic-related crashes in the United States with the vast majority of fatalities occurring in dark conditions. To address these tragedies, most new vehicles offer advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) equipped with Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking (PAEB) as a standard or optional feature.
PAEB systems provide automatic braking for vehicles when pedestrians are in the path of the vehicle’s travel and the driver has taken insufficient action to avoid an imminent crash. However, current systems utilizing camera and radar technology frequently fail to protect pedestrians in dark conditions according to independent testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) and the American Automobile Association (AAA).
To reflect real-life conditions, the white paper proposes expanding future PAEB testing protocols to include tests conducted in dark, nighttime conditions. The new tests would be conducted in less than one lux ambient illuminance, using low-beam headlights and without streetlights. This change would provide the public with useful information on the performance of pedestrian detection systems in low-light conditions that occur on roadways.
To demonstrate how expanded testing would work, the white paper details the results of nighttime PAEB tests conducted by Velodyne. The tests evaluated a highly-rated PAEB system using current camera and radar-based technology and Velodyne’s PAEB system that uses Velodyne’s lidar sensors and Vella™ software. In these nighttime conditions, the camera and radar-based PAEB system failed in all five scenarios while the lidar-based system avoided a crash in every situation tested.
“With dark nighttime conditions so dangerous for pedestrians, it is imperative vehicle assessment organizations expand PAEB testing in ambient light conditions of less than one lux,” said David Heeren, Sr. Technical Product Marketing Manager, Velodyne Lidar. “Tests performed by NHTSA and AAA demonstrate nighttime performance represents a major opportunity for improvement in current PAEB systems. Velodyne testing shows the efficacy of our lidar-based solution, which can strengthen a vehicle’s functional safety capabilities and address scenarios that cause thousands of pedestrian fatalities annually.”
About Velodyne Lidar
Velodyne Lidar (NASDAQ: VLDR) ushered in a new era of autonomous technology with the invention of real-time surround view lidar sensors. Velodyne is the first public pure-play lidar company and is known worldwide for its broad portfolio of breakthrough lidar technologies. Velodyne’s revolutionary sensor and software solutions provide flexibility, quality and performance to meet the needs of a wide range of industries, including autonomous vehicles, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), smart cities and security. Through continuous innovation, Velodyne strives to transform lives and communities by advancing safer mobility for all. For more information, visit www.velodynelidar.com.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201020005335/en/
Contact information
Media
Landis Communications Inc.
Sean Dowdall
(415) 286-7121
velodyne@landispr.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Galderma’s Restylane ® Volyme™ Demonstrates High Effectiveness, Satisfaction and a Robust Safety Profile in Chinese Patients With Temple Hollowing16.9.2026 08:00:00 EEST | Press release
Galderma (SIX: GALD) today announced positive topline results from a study of Restylane Volyme for the correction of moderate-to-severe temple hollowing in 162 patients in China.1 The study met its primary endpoint, demonstrating the effectiveness and safety of Restylane Volyme versus a no-treatment control, while also achieving high patient and investigator satisfaction.1 These data further reinforce Galderma's ambition to expand its Restylane hyaluronic acid (HA) injectables portfolio in China, one of the world's fastest-growing aesthetics markets, through evidence generation that supports broader patient access and additional treatment areas.1-3 Powered by diverse NASHA®, NASHA HD™, and OBT™ technologies, Restylane offers gels with the highest firmness to the highest flexibility, enabling personalized treatments that deliver structural support, natural-looking results, and a healthy glow.1,4-8 Restylane Volyme is a moderately soft and flexible gel made with OBT that distributes with
Nippon Electric Glass’s IR Transmitting Glass “FI-02” Adopted for Heimann Sensor Lens Unit, Enabling a 120° × 68° Field of View16.9.2026 04:00:00 EEST | Press release
Nippon Electric Glass Co., Ltd. (NEG) (TOKYO: 5214), a global leader in specialty glass headquartered in Otsu, Japan, announced that its IR Transmitting Glass (chalcogenide glass) “FI-02” has been adopted for Heimann Sensor GmbH’s wide-angle lens unit for thermal cameras. The lens unit achieves a 120° × 68° field of view, surpassing the previous product’s maximum of 92° × 59°. The adoption marks a significant milestone for FI-02 and showcases how advanced specialty glass can meet the demanding optical and manufacturing requirements of the expanding infrared sensing market. Thermal cameras detect infrared radiation emitted by people or objects and convert it into thermal images. Infrared sensors can detect the locations of people and temperature distributions. They are expected to be used for people detection and monitoring, where privacy considerations are important, and for air-conditioning control, while their use is expanding in healthcare, equipment monitoring, and security. Advanc
Workiva Advances Regulatory Work with AI Innovation15.9.2026 18:00:00 EEST | Press release
Workiva Inc. (NYSE: WK), a leading, audit-ready platform for trust, transparency, and accountability, unveiled dozens of new product and platform innovations at Amplify 2026, the company’s annual conference attended by thousands of finance, accounting, sustainability, risk, and compliance leaders. Workiva Debuts Agent Studio Workiva introduced Agent Studio, a landmark platform capability that empowers users to quickly build, customize, and deploy AI agents in Workiva's trusted platform. By combining AI reasoning with Workiva's native platform capabilities, enterprise knowledge, and governed workflows, Agent Studio enables users to automate sophisticated manual business processes without writing any code. Organizations can enrich agents with company-specific knowledge and context, tailor them to their own processes, and schedule automations to execute recurring work. “With Agent Studio, we're putting the power to build in the hands of the people who know the work and their company the b
Study: Heatwaves Increase Cough Urge, Which Salt Aerosols Reduce15.9.2026 16:15:00 EEST | Press release
SC Therapeutics, with University North Carolina, Imperial College London, and Boston University, announced publication on Tuesday in Nature Scientific Reports of results from a multi-institutional study indicating that the aridity inherent in heatwaves increases cough hypersensitivity in human airways by collapsing mucus onto cilia in a manner common to chronic respiratory diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, and asthma. The researchers find that alkaline aerosols of magnesium salts reverse mucosal collapse for several hours, and reduce cough hypersensitivity as reflected in placebo-adjusted suppression of daily cough bout rate (59%, p=0.03) and persistence of suppression post treatment for 1 to 3 weeks in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 10 refractory chronic cough patients. “Paris recorded 5,764 excess deaths between 17 June and 2 July, a period of time during which we report atmospheric aridity in the city increased approximately 3-fold relative to the 35 year a
ADM’s Fourth Annual Regenerative Agriculture Report Highlights Growing Resilience Across the Food System15.9.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
ADM (NYSE: ADM), a global leader in innovative solutions from nature, today released its fourth annual regenerative agriculture report, showing how its programs are supporting farmers, strengthening agricultural supply chains and delivering measurable environmental outcomes around the world. “Resilience starts on the farm. By improving and protecting soil health, farmers can be better equipped to adapt to changing conditions and maintain productive operations,” said Greg Morris, SVP and President, Ag Services and Oilseeds, ADM. “That resilience can extend across the value chain, helping strengthen the food system we all depend on.” In 2025, ADM’s regenerative agriculture programs engaged more than 56,000 farmers across approximately 4.6 million acres, 11 countries and 10 crops. Compared with regional benchmarks, the programs resulted in approximately 946,000 metric tons of CO₂e reductions. “ADM views agriculture as a powerful way to meet evolving customer needs, and our work in regener
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom