Shenzhen Pingshan, China's first fully unmanned RoboTaxi operation area

Jin Lei compiled from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Location: Pingshan District, Shenzhen .

If you pay close attention these two days, you will find that you can always see unusual taxis on the streets.

But what is even more unique is that the passengers sit in the back seat and there is no driver in the front .

For example:

It’s 2021 now, so you may not be surprised to see driverless cars, but it’s important to note that:

This is in a busy urban area!

Can we now take driverless taxis at will in the city?

That’s right! Just now, China’s first full-area, full-domain, full-vehicle driverless system was officially released.

The publisher is from the driverless RoboTaxi company - AutoX .

It is understood that the current operating area of ​​AutoX's fully unmanned RoboTaxi has completely covered all the streets in Pingshan District, Shenzhen.

This makes it the first in China and the largest in China :

A completely unmanned operating area has been built, with an area of ​​168 square kilometers of "no man's land".

What is it like to ride a Robotaxi in a busy business district?

Although RoboTaxi can be operated in urban areas, it is still a form of transportation . I'm sure many people will ask:

is it safe?

Let’s take a look at a real journey record of AutoX’s fully unmanned RoboTaxi.

The starting point of this trip is Shenzhen Pingshan Foreign Language School . After receiving the task, RoboTaxi started its journey.

According to the route instructions, you need to make a U-turn ahead, and RoboTaxi can complete the operation smoothly even in a narrow space.

After turning right and encountering a temporary roadblock, RoboTaxi made a timely decision and changed lanes continuously to enter the leftmost road.

It is common to encounter construction sections when entering the highway.

As a result, the road where the RoboTaxi was traveling was blocked, so after waiting for the vehicle behind it on the left to pass, it bypassed the traffic cones and entered the rightmost lane.

Even at a large, unlit six-lane intersection with complex road conditions, unprotected left turns can be completed.

Finally, RoboTaxi arrived at its destination, the North Square of Pingshan High-speed Railway Station, smoothly.

How about it?

After watching the driving record of AutoX's fully unmanned RoboTaxi, do you think it is quite reliable?

(See the end of the article for the full video of the one-shot video)

So the next question is:

How does RoboTaxi travel smoothly in the city?

It is understood that the full-area, full-domain, and full-vehicle unmanned driving capability comes from AutoX's Gen5 system.

The model shown in the above example is the Grand Voyager , a collaboration between Chrysler FCA and AutoX .

Not only does it have original manufacturer support, it also has automotive-grade redundant wire control, and is currently the only model that can support true unmanned driving.

The performance of AutoX Gen5 was revealed at a press conference held in July this year.

For example, with the world's highest-definition automotive-grade sensor:

• 28 8-megapixel automotive-grade cameras

• The total number of pixels per frame exceeds 220 million

• The world's highest resolution 4D millimeter wave radar

• Angular resolution up to 0.9 degrees

• High Definition LiDAR

• Over 15 million point cloud images per second
  

In addition, its self-developed core computing platform and autonomous driving domain electronic and electrical architecture AutoX XCU can achieve a computing power of 2200TOPS .

It is understood that AutoX Gen5 is China's first truly fully unmanned autonomous driving technology platform, which has refreshed the standards of China's RoboTaxi and is comparable to the world's top players in the field of unmanned driving.

…

But in fact, this is not the first time that AutoX has operated Robotaxi in Pingshan District, Shenzhen. Instead, it has accumulated capabilities and operations for nearly a year.

Because of this, at the 2021 Shenzhen Pingshan District Investment Promotion Conference "Innovative Pingshan, City of the Future" not long ago (November 5) , AutoX was specially invited as a major industrial project to sign a separate contract and give a keynote speech entitled "AutoX Antu explores the large-scale implementation of driverless driving."

△ At the Pingshan District Investment Promotion Conference, AutoX was specially invited to sign a contract and give a keynote speech

Up to now, Pingshan District of Shenzhen City has brought together two leading enterprises, BYD and AutoX, based on its policy support for the intelligent connected industry, and has become the strongest representative of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the fields of new energy and autonomous driving.

Large-scale implementation in Shenzhen and Shanghai

Since its establishment, AutoX has always focused on the research and development and implementation of fully autonomous driving technology.

In June 2019, AutoX obtained the first batch of autonomous driving road test licenses in Guangzhou. In November 2019, it obtained the Shenzhen road test license and became the first company to pass the Shenzhen autonomous driving function test. At the end of 2019, Shanghai promulgated the new autonomous driving regulations 2.0 and issued the first upgraded license. AutoX was among them and became the first autonomous driving company to obtain licenses in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

In April 2020, AutoX launched China's first fully autonomous driving test on urban public roads.

In July 2020, AutoX obtained the world's second and China's first fully driverless RoboTaxi license in California, and conducted fully driverless public road tests simultaneously in Shenzhen and Silicon Valley, becoming the world's first company to conduct fully driverless tests simultaneously in China and the United States.

In December 2020, AutoX released China's first batch of fully unmanned RoboTaxi fleets, consisting of 25 Chrysler FCA Grand Voyagers with front-mounted redundant wire-controlled MPVs, and launched large-scale fully unmanned testing in Shenzhen.

In January 2021, AutoX's "fully unmanned" (no one in the front or back seats) RoboTaxi was opened to the public for operation, making it the only company in China and the second in the world to operate a truly unmanned RoboTaxi.

So far, AutoX is still the only fully unmanned RoboTaxi in China.

Since the public launch of its fully unmanned RoboTaxi operations, AutoX has released the first two-hour continuous unmanned driving video of an empty vehicle, and China's first unmanned driving video of an empty vehicle under the "ultimate challenging road conditions" during rush hour in an urban village.

This time, AutoX once again achieved a breakthrough from zero, becoming China's first and only fully unmanned RoboTaxi with the largest coverage area, covering the entire region of 168 square kilometers and at the full regional level.

△ AutoX driverless car driving in Shenzhen urban village

From the deployment of hundreds of autonomous driving fleets in first-tier cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai, to large-scale testing and verification in downtown areas and manned demonstration applications, to China's only fully empty and driverless RoboTaxi operation on public urban roads.

During the past year and a half of driverless testing and operations, AutoX has maintained a perfect safety record, successfully achieved zero accidents, and safely carried China's first batch of fully driverless passengers.

But even with such achievements, AutoX will continue to increase its research and development scale.

It is reported that AutoX continues to increase its recruitment of scientific research talents in its major R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and it is expected to have a R&D team of more than 1,000 people within the year.