Aiming squarely at the emerging markets of drone mapping and mobile robotics, Velodyne LiDAR, based in California’s Silicon Valley, has announced a partnership agreement with Dibotics, a Paris-based company specializing in GPS-denied and infrastructure-less navigation.
Under the agreement, Dibotics will provide consulting services to Velodyne LiDAR customers who require Dibotics’ 3D simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) software, and Velodyne will assist Dibotics in enhancing its technology when deployed with Velodyne’s 3D LiDAR sensors. Velodyne says the two companies have been collaborating informally for some time across a range of applications.
In robotic mapping, SLAM involves the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of a specific point within it, says Velodyne.
“We’re eager to work closely with Velodyne LiDAR to deliver the best solutions to emerging markets, like real-time drone mapping and mobile robotics applications,” says Raul Bravo, CEO of Dibotics. “We have applied our technology to a wide range of application fields in several industry segments all over the world to achieve fully autonomous function, perception-enriched tele-operation or 3D modelization. This partnership represents the next step in our evolution and in the maturation of the technology.”
Erich Smidt, Velodyne LiDAR’s regional director for Europe, adds, “Localization and mobile robotics represent major growth opportunities for us and for the industry as a whole, and we see Dibotics as complementing our LiDAR market leadership.”
