China News Agency, Changsha, April 23 Question: Self-driving taxis are fully open on the streets, Changsha is aiming at the "first city"
Author Fu Jingyi Xu Zhixiong
Users between the ages of 18 and 65 who enter their identity information through the software can call one-click taxis for self-driving. A few days ago, Baidu Apollo self-driving taxi was fully opened to the public in Changsha, and a large-scale trial operation was initiated, which attracted a lot of attention. This technology that still stays in science fiction movies, has it really come to people?
On April 22, the reporter came to the Baidu Apollo autonomous taxi test city in Changsha, made an appointment through mobile phone software, and experienced a service of taxi automatic driving to send passengers to their destination on the spot. The process is basically the same as the current online car-hailing model. the same.
When a red flag autopilot arrived, the reporter found that there were still two staff members in the front driver's seat. Before boarding the vehicle, passengers must undergo a temperature test. After boarding the vehicle, the smart device will also detect whether the passenger has worn a mask. After the passengers are seated, as long as they click to confirm on the display behind the front seats, the car will start driving automatically.
"According to the requirements of current policies and regulations, unmanned vehicles must be equipped with safety officers, so there are safety officers and testers in the driver's seat and the co-pilot, respectively." The co-driver tester said that if there is no emergency, the safety officer basically does not Any operation will be carried out on the vehicle, but the hand has been holding on to the leg and the foot is put on the brake, ready to take over at any time.
When the vehicle is driving, the display will accurately simulate the current road traffic conditions, obstacles and dynamic prediction in the 360-degree field of view around the vehicle body, and make accurate avoidance. Driving lanes, intersection traffic lights, etc. are also accompanied by speed limit reminders and lane change reminders . The only drawback is that the vehicle feels a little hurried when braking.
After driving for nearly three kilometers, the self-driving taxi arrived safely at the destination, intelligent driving throughout, deceleration and obstacle avoidance were relatively stable. Cheng Li, head of the Apollo Zhixing Test and Vehicle Operation and Maintenance Department, said that Apollo has now reached the L4 level of driverless cars, and the automatic driving system can operate in all scenarios in a limited area.
Autonomous driving manned tests have been carried out in Beijing, Cangzhou and other places in China, but it is the first time in China that Changsha is fully open to local people. In fact, as early as June 2019, Apollo obtained 45 man-carrying test licenses issued by the Changsha Municipal Government. As of the end of December 2019, it has accumulated more than 10,000 safe passenger trips.
"After half a year of seed user operation, we have established a complete operation area safety assessment mechanism and technical guarantee system, so we decided to open large-scale trial operation to the public." Cheng Li said that there are currently 45 self-driving taxis in Changsha Put into trial operation and testing, the open taxi range is about 130 square kilometers.
Why is the first city to open self-driving taxis to consumers is Changsha? According to the data, since 2018, Changsha has negotiated and docked more than 80 key projects in the field of smart cars. A total of nearly 30 smart car head companies have been introduced. By the end of 2019, 347 key companies in the smart car industry had been gathered.
As early as 2016, Changsha planned to develop the artificial intelligence and intelligent connected car industry with the Xiangjiang New District as the core, and was awarded the national intelligent connected car (Changsha) test area in November 2018, opening the scope of domestic intelligent transformation The widest city, the most comprehensive type of road, and the strictest security protection of urban open roads.
"Baidu Apollo has reached various standards in terms of running time, mileage and other indicators in the test area, and has only passed the various tests before entering the open road trial operation, and the test still needs to be conducted every six months." Cheng Li said, Intelligent Connected Auto The industry's landing in Changsha is inseparable from the support of these "road test" conditions.
In March of this year, Huawei's autonomous driving cloud service was put into use in various intelligent networked enterprises in Xiangjiang New District, Hunan, which can help car companies and developers to develop autonomous driving applications and help commercialization of autonomous driving. This means that the Changsha Intelligent Connected Vehicle Industry will spread on the cloud platform.
The intelligent networked automobile industry "started from the north to Guangzhou and looked at Changsha". At the first Baidu Apollo Ecological Conference in December 2019, Zhu Jian, then deputy secretary of the Changsha Municipal Party Committee, said: "Changsha hopes to have the sixth business card of" Autonomous Driving First City "(this) in the future." (End)