Valeo joins Baidu Apollo autonomous driving ecosystem

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- French automotive part supplier Valeo announced on July 4 that it has formed a strategic partnership with Apollo, the open autonomous driving platform developed by Chinese Internet giant Baidu.

As a global bellwether in sensor area, Valeo will contribute its expertise to the cooperation. According to official introduction, the France-based company has the most comprehensive range of sensors in industry, including cameras, radars, ultrasonic sensors and the Valeo SCALA™ laser scanner.

By virtue of its advanced sensor technologies, Valeo has already accomplished multiple world’s first autonomous driving trial trips, such as the 24-hour trip on the Paris beltway and road trips around Europe and the United States.

Valeo will also provide its expertise in sensor cleaning systems, which is key to optimizing sensors’ performance, enhancing the connectivity between autonomous vehicles and improving the air quality inside the vehicle.

Meanwhile, Valeo will benefit from the full range of software, hardware and data platforms provided by Apollo through its open, reliable and secure platform.

Launched in April 2017, Apollo has been dedicated to accelerating the development, testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles. It contains four major business parts, namely, vehicle platform, hardware platform, software platform as well as data and cloud services, boasting a number of core technologies, such as environmental perception, behavior prediction, planning, control, intelligent connectivity, human-machine interaction, high-precision localization and high-definition map, etc. On July 4, Baidu revealed the latest iteration of Apollo platform, the Apollo 3.0, and increased the number of its ecosystem partners to 116.