Fierce Electronics and Sensors Converge presented the finalists of the 2023 Best of Sensors Awards on June 21 during the Sensors Converge Conference and Expo. There were 14 categories of awards, from medical to industrial IoT, that recognize the most innovative sensor products and their makers. This year, Valeo won the award in the Automotive/Autonomous category for its SCALA 3 LiDAR.
SCALA 3 adds more functionality and customer value to Valeo's past designs: SCALA 1 and SCALA 2. Their past models made it possible for cars to drive themselves in traffic jams. The SCALA 3 takes LiDAR technology to the next level, Level 3 automation. With Level 3 automation, a driver can take their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road, and the vehicle can take over certain driving tasks.
"This winning product will expand the domain of operation of conditionally automated vehicles to wider areas and higher speed and make robotaxi deployments at scale possible," said Charlene Soucy, senior director of sensors and electronics, when announcing Valeo as the winner.
Valeo SCALA 3 uses a laser-based system to generate a 3D point cloud of a vehicle's surroundings at a resolution that competitive products have yet to match. It can process images at over 12 million pixels per second, which is 16 times more than the SCALA 2. It can detect low-reflectivity objects at 200 meters and high-reflectivity objects at 300 meters. SCALA 3 can also detect road markings and map ground topology.
Valeo SCALA 3 is more than hardware. It comes with a suite of software modules that includes algorithms for both artificial intelligence and perception. The AI system collects data from the LiDAR sensors and analyzes them in real-time, enabling the SCALA 3 to direct an automobile's trajectory and predict clear paths on the road ahead.
Its LiDAR capabilities ensure unsurpassed reliability and safety through rain and spray detection, blockage detection, misalignment detection, and online calibration. It can identify objects in the roadway that a driver, cameras, or radar are incapable of detecting, like a tire on an asphalt road in the dark. SCALA 3 software modules can run on dedicated domain controllers or ECUs, or be embedded on major SoC platforms.
Valeo SCALA 3 uses automotive-grade technology like Valeo's other LiDAR products. This guarantees that the data it generates is accurate and dependable under all usage scenarios and diverse weather conditions, from -40° to 85°C (-40° to 185°F). Valeo's SCALA 3 LiDAR has already been chosen by a leading American robotaxi company and a leading Asian automobile manufacturer and has registered orders worth over 1 billion Euros.
Valeo was founded in 1923 in Saint-Ouen, France, and started by distributing brake linings and clutch facings for automobiles. In the last hundred years, it has expanded its operations into 15 countries and over 70 companies. The company has also kept up with changes in technology. Valeo was the first and still is the leading company in the production of LiDAR sensors and perception software for automobiles.
To find out how other companies are innovating sensor design, visit the 2023 Best of Sensors Awards.