Cepton Lidar deployed in government-funded pedestrian safety projects in Texas and Utah

Cepton, a leader in high-performance lidar solutions for the automotive and smart infrastructure markets, announced that its lidar technology has been used in studies in Texas and Utah to help improve traffic safety for all road users, in alignment with the national Vision Zero and Complete Streets initiatives.

Cepton’s Helius® Smart Lidar System, which combines lidar sensors with edge computing and intelligent perception software, has been deployed by researchers from the University of Texas Arlington (UTA) through the USDOT-funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) at two busy intersections in two Texas cities: one in Arlington, Texas, which connects two UTA campuses; the other in the neighborhood of a high school in Irving, Texas.

The deployments enabled two studies funded by NITC, with additional support from the cities of Arlington and Irving, Texas, the Oregon Department of Transportation, UTA and the University of Utah.

The first study uses Helius to analyze pedestrian behaviors and revealed that pedestrian behaviors often do not align with recommendations in pedestrian facility design guides, such as the AASHTO “Green Book.”

The second study focuses on the separation of left-turning vehicles from concurrent pedestrians crossings, utilizing an innovative dynamic flashing yellow arrow (D-FYA) system that generates signal operations based on real-time pedestrian analytics enabled by 3D lidar perception.

With proven effectiveness, the lidar-enabled D-FYA solution will be deployed in Salt Lake City, Utah in a project funded by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT). UDOT is already working on the implementation of this solution to further evaluate lidar’s potential capabilities of increasing the safety and efficiency of traffic operations.

cepton.com