Artificial intelligence is expected to solve a host of challenges. Lidar applications and sensor fusion play a major role in this. Autonomous vehicles are one of the most interesting and closely followed development areas in the application field. Technology that detects the surrounding environment is also believed to improve traffic safety.
Lidar Hack Day will be organised tomorrow in the Hervanta Kampusareena in Tampere, bringing together laser radar developers to discuss the possibilities and development challenges in the field, to share information and best practices, and to form networks. The event is organised by Unikie.
– We wanted to provide a meeting place for different operators who aim to utilise laser radars in detecting the surrounding environment. This is a relatively new application area that doesn’t yet have much of a community. It isn’t easy to find parties with whom one could discuss issues or compare results. We though that we could take it upon ourselves to start creating a community for this by organising an event around the theme, says Unikie CEO Esko Mertsalmi.
Lidar Hack Day has been well received in the field
Researchers and developers from about 20 different organisations are taking part in Lidar Hack Day. A total of about 40 persons are involved in the event. The afternoon programme consists of talks related to the topic, and they are – in the spirit of Hack Day – kept as general and interactive as possible to make it easier for participants to get involved.
– Professor Jukka Heikkonen from the University of Turku will give an opening speech on Lidar applications and sensor fusion. This will be followed by a talk from Senior Project Manager Matti Kutila of VTT, with the topic of Lidars in connection with automated driving. Unikie’s Lidar expert Sergey Smirnov will take us through Lidar algorithms and point cloud visualisation, and present the currently used applications and best practices. The main idea for the day is to meet people, create networks, and see the latest Lidar demos. At the same time we’ll be building a community around Lidar technology, states the head organiser for the event, Jari Mononen of Unikie.
We’ll witness VTT’s robot car, Martti, showing us how LiDAR technology is utilised for detection technology in relation to the surrounding environment in automated driving.
– The car will have three laser scanners by SICK, two of which have eight lines and one is of the HD type. We’ve demonstrated automated driving with this car in snowy conditions and at speeds of up to 80 km/h, says VTT’s Matti Kutila.
