Lidar supplier Cepton Technologies has joined the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program, which intends to bring technologies and companies together to collaborate, innovate and accelerate the rollout of smart cities and smart connected spaces globally. Cepton believes its presence in this ecosystem aligns with Qualcomm Technologies’ vision of bringing efficient, safe and advanced technology to fast-growing urban environments. With its membership, Cepton hopes to advance the use of lidar-based solutions with other members of the program across smart cities and smart connected spaces.
For example, through the Qualcomm IoT Services Suite, Cepton and one of its key partners in smart spaces, The Indoor Lab, plan to collaborate with Qualcomm in offering Smart Venues as a Service, utilizing a lidar-based crowd analytics system which adheres to the privacy concerns and optimizes the utilization of spaces.
Cepton states that lidar can enable a wide range of applications to help build safer, smarter, and better-connected environments. Thanks to their anonymized data, lidars maximize protection of people’s privacy as they collect useful information to help drive intelligent decisions in smart cities and smart spaces.
The company says it has already been working with global partners to enable the transformation of transportation infrastructure, public venues and large commercial facilities using smart lidar solutions. For example, its partnership with The Indoor Lab deployed a lidar-based crowd analytics solution as a pilot project at an Orlando International Airport terminal in 2020 to offer anonymous footfall tracking, helping maintenance crews in targeted cleaning and travelers in avoiding crowded areas.
“We are proud to join Qualcomm Technologies’ network of technology innovators through the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program as we work to help advance the future of smart infrastructure with our lidar technologies,” said Jun Pei, CEO of Cepton.
“To date, our technology has been successfully used to enable real-time traffic and pedestrian monitoring at road and rail intersections, free-flow electronic tolling systems, critical infrastructure security and crowd analytics. By joining the Qualcomm Smart Cities Accelerator Program ecosystem, we look forward to making our technologies more accessible on a global scale.”