Advantech and Quanergy bring lidar to smart cities and logistics

  • October 19, 2020
  • Steve Rogerson

Taiwanese firm Advantech is working with California-based Quanergy Systems to create lidar-enabled 3D IoT technology for smart city and logistics applications.

Advantech provides industrial computing and Quanergy builds lidar sensors and smart perception products. Quanergy’s sensors and software have been added to Advantech’s edge servers to build lidar-enabled 3D IoT systems for intelligent logistics and smart city services.

Advantech’s range of edge servers, from low-cost small-format servers for indoor retail environments, to certified devices for automotive, rail and marine applications, to rack servers for data centres, ensures that a suitable platform can be offered for lidar applications.

Quanergy’s 3D lidar sensors from can prevent collisions between vehicles and people, one of the warehouse’s most significant safety measures. Its flow management lidar products provide better than 95% detection accuracy and identify as well as track objects in all lighting and atmospheric conditions.

By using lidar sensors, either as stationary installations or in combination with vehicle-mounted computers, logistics companies can provide a safer working environment for their employees. Lidar and edge servers can provide perimeter protection for goods and locations and lead to efficiency gains.

In the wake of Covid-19, many regions hold retailers and mall operators accountable for keeping the record of the number of visitors and their behaviour. Because lidar doesn’t use facial recognition technology nor require opt-in by users, Advantech and Quanergy can guarantee the anonymity of people and provide GDPR compliancy for people counting and tracking, occupancy and distance monitoring.

Working together, the two companies have created a way to meets the high everyday demands in a large number of different branches.

“I am very happy and excited over the agreement with Quanergy,” said Styrbjörn Torbacke, head of Advantech’s i-city services in Europe. “The collaboration will open significant new opportunities for both companies that we would have had difficulties in addressing individually. Our offerings are so clearly complementary, it is almost surprising that this agreement has not come to fruition sooner.”

Enzo Signore, CMO at Quanergy, added: “The Industry 4.0 transition is built on real-time data gathering with smart analysis, algorithms to simulate and predict the decision making for the next best action. We are thrilled to partner with Advantech, a global service and industrial IoT leader, to accelerate business process productivity in the smart city, smart spaces and logistics sectors with innovative 3D lidar that protects the privacy of people.”

Founded in 1983 in Taiwan, Advantech promotes IoT hardware and software to drive IoT, big data and artificial intelligence. It also supports business partners in connecting industrial value chains. Within the support, sales and marketing network, the company has more than 8600 employees worldwide.

Quanergy Systems was founded in 2012 and builds on decades of experience of its team in the areas of optics, photonics, optoelectronics, artificial intelligence software and control systems. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, it offers an AI-powered lidar platform designed to accelerate the automation of key business processes to increase productivity, efficiency and safety in a 3D world.