Mircea Gradu, PhD, Sr. Vice President of Automotive Programs at Velodyne Lidar appeared on an NI’s ADAS & AD Stories video. The episode discusses lidar technology and the critical role it plays in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving (AD) solutions.

NI develops automated test and automated measurement systems. These systems include Velodyne lidar sensor simulation for developing and testing ADAS and AD capabilities.

The video interview was posted on YouTube in advance of Velodyne and NI co-exhibiting at IAA MOBILITY 2021 (Sept. 7 to 12) in Munich, Germany, at Hall B3, Booth A75. The interview was conducted by Daniel Riedelbauch, solutions marketer, ADAS & AD Validation at NI.

Among the topics that Mircea discussed with Daniel was how Velodyne believes starting with the use case of the vehicle is the best starting method for assessing which sensor modality to use. Mircea added when ADAS and AD developers take that approach, lidar provides considerable advantages which can be centric in a vehicle’s sensor suite.

To provide an example, Mircea discussed our Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking (PAEB) system demonstration and testing which presents a “very compelling case for lidar use” in that application.

To learn more about lidar and pedestrian safety, check out the Velodyne white paper “Improving Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking (PAEB) in Dark, Nighttime Conditions.”

The interview also explored how NI is using Velodyne’s lidar technology to create digital twins and is providing validated physics-based sensor models for Velodyne lidar sensors.

To watch the complete interview with Mircea, please go to NI’s ADAS & AD Stories on YouTube.