Blickfeld Announces Smart 3D LiDAR Alongside Launch of Percept Software

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

January 05, 2022

News

Blickfeld Announces Smart 3D LiDAR Alongside Launch of Percept Software

At CES 2022, Blickfeld, the Munich-based start-up developing high performance and mass-producible LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensing technology, launched its  perception software, Percept.

Designed for Blickfeld’s Cube sensor range for industry use, Percept includes functions like movement-based detection and tracking of objects, object classification and counting, zone occupancy detection, and zone entry detection with integrated alarm generation. This makes Percept suitable for a wide variety of applications, such as crowd analytics, traffic management, smart industry, and security solutions.

With the launch of Percept, Blickfeld also announces an industry and world-first - the next generation of LiDAR, the Qb2. Combining software and hardware in one device, Qb2 is an integrated smart LiDAR that requires no additional computers, servers, or adaptor boxes, to provide efficient capturing and processing of 3D data in one single unit for the first time. 

Blickfeld’s Percept software, with its user-friendly interface, now makes extracting value from 3D data simple. Users are empowered to create and deploy projects with the help of a browser-based setup wizard and directly generate actionable data. No specific know-how in 3D data processing is necessary to develop scalable solutions for a variety of purposes. Percept has already successfully been deployed in customer projects, including a people counting application at Frankfurt airport. 

The future of LiDAR is smart. Powerful software will be crucial to get the most benefit from the immense data captured. Embedding the software in the sensor allows it to directly generate comprehensive information in the form of object or event lists. This will make the handling even easier, and allows customers to quickly deploy and operate LiDAR solutions.

Qb2 signals a quantum leap in the LiDAR domain. The smart device combines Blickfeld’s patented and industry-proven MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) LiDAR hardware technology with a powerful compute module, which runs the company’s Percept software stack on device. Translating data gathered through LiDAR sensors into actionable information will no longer require an additional network of computing hardware, thus reducing complexity, energy consumption, and the costs of implementation and operation.

Percept is available immediately. As of the third quarter of 2022, Blickfeld will deliver the first Qb2 prototypes to selected customers.

For more information, visit: https://www.blickfeld.com/


Read more of Embedded Computing Design’s CES 2022 coverage at https://www.embeddedcomputing.com/ces-2022 or stay up to date by following the @embedded_comp twitter handle.

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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