Velodyne Lidar today announced the company has acquired Bluecity, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) software company whose lidar-based solutions solve safety, traffic and infrastructure issues. With the all-stock acquisition Velodyne wants to deliver AI-powered autonomous vision solutions.
Velodyne and Bluecity have already been partnering for many years on lidar-based solutions for smart city applications. Velodyne’s Intelligent Infrastructure Solution (IIS) combines the company’s lidar sensors and Bluecity’s AI software. IIS delivers traffic monitoring and analytics to improve road safety and efficiency, and helps cities plan for smarter, greener transportation systems.
The solution is deployed across four continents with 74 installations, including systems rolled out domestically in California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Maryland, Texas, Nevada and Michigan and internationally in Canada, China, UAE, India, Finland, Germany and Australia.
Velodyne will continue to expand its Intelligent Infrastructure Solution’s capabilities, including monitoring flows of people and vehicles to create a range of new full-stack infrastructure solutions for applications such as parking, retail, casinos and stadiums. According to Yole Intelligence the smart infrastructure market for lidar will grow from $108M in 2021 to $1.1B in 20271. To serve these growing markets, Velodyne will integrate Bluecity’s AI and analytics software, delivered in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, with Velodyne’s Vella lidar perception software.
Intersection in Austin, Texas with Velodyne Lidar’s Intelligent Infrastructure Solution installed using Velodyne’s lidar sensors and Bluecity’s AI software
