Velodyne’s Alpha Prime™ was designed to power safe mobility. It is a next generation lidar sensor that utilizes Velodyne’s 360-degree surround-view perception technology to support autonomous mobility. As a result of over ten years of lidar development and learning, the Alpha Prime is a sensor specifically made for autonomous driving in complex conditions for travel up to highway speeds. The combined range, resolution and field of view in one sensor is designed to be a catalyst to drive the autonomous strategies of automotive and robotaxi companies, as well as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
The elegantly designed Alpha Prime can support navigation in critical environmental perception challenges. It delivers a 360° horizontal/40° vertical field of view, range of 265 meters at 10% reflectivity, and high resolution and point density at full frame rate. The synergy of these capabilities in a single device can enable autonomy under a wide range of environmental and lighting conditions.
The Alpha Prime offers high resolution along with robust reflectivity returns, simplifying detection and tracking of vehicles, pedestrians and other obstructions. The Alpha Prime provides industry-leading sensor-to-sensor interference mitigation, advancing the elimination of lidar crosstalk and environmental noise. It also delivers power efficiency and thermal performance without the need for active cooling.
Velodyne has dominated the lidar market for 13 years with a broad product portfolio, including the Alpha Prime. The company has 300+ customers, including nearly all of the leading global automotive original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) and leading tech companies. With 165 projects in a wide range of industries, Velodyne’s sensors are advancing innovation in autonomy and safe mobility around the world.
Recently, Velodyne was named “Hardware Supplier of the Year” in the TU-Automotive awards for its development, adoption and integration of automotive technology into vehicles. Winning this prestigious award further demonstrates how Velodyne innovations, including the Alpha Prime, are accelerating autonomous vehicle development and enhancing advanced driver assistance systems.
The Alpha Prime has demonstrated stability, reliability and resilience in rigid automotive-grade testing and validation. Velodyne has multiple global manufacturing sources that meet automotive industry production standards. Using proprietary manufacturing processes, the company can produce high-quality sensors at volume to address customer needs.
Among the robotaxi companies that are using Alpha Prime is Voyage.
“Voyage has developed and deployed self-driving cars super-charged by Velodyne’s lidar technology,” said Oliver Cameron, Voyage Co-Founder & CEO. “Our team was amazed by the advancements in the Alpha Prime and are continually impressed by Velodyne’s string of innovations.”
Alpha Prime also supports a wide variety of other applications, including mobile mapping, robotics, security and more.
The Alpha Prime enables autonomous operation within a broad range of settings, including urban and highway environments. It produces detection of dark or low reflectance objects at long distances, such as tires, dark vehicles, low reflectivity pavement and low visibility pedestrians. The sensor also delivers advanced negative obstacle perception, such as potholes and cracks in the road.
In contrast to the Alpha Prime, camera sensors suffer in low lighting conditions, struggle with optical illusions and require relatively complex computations to provide distance measurements. Looking at another sensor type in comparison with lidar, radar has lower resolution (>10 centimeters+), so a radar’s 3D image is fuzzy. Radars also have difficulty detecting stationary objects and are not generally capable of accurate object detection.
The Alpha Prime sensor produces millions of data points per second, enabling precise, reliable navigation in real time to detect objects, vehicles and people that might pose a collision threat. The Alpha Prime can help autonomous vehicles navigate roadways at various speeds, traveling in a range of conditions such as rain, sleet, and snow. Equipped with the Alpha Prime, autonomous vehicles can safely and efficiently navigate in unfamiliar and dynamic environments.
For more information and product specifications, please click here: Alpha Prime.
Velodyne Lidar (Nasdaq: VLDR, VLDRW) ushered in a new era of autonomous technology with the invention of real-time surround view lidar sensors. Velodyne, a global leader in lidar, is known 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 robotics, industrial, intelligent infrastructure, autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Through continuous innovation, Velodyne strives to transform lives and communities by advancing safer mobility for all.
