Autonomous driving, a technology that is forced to emerge

Three years ago, Baidu CEO Robin Li drove a self-driving car on the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, becoming the first person to try out this technology and also receiving the first self-driving ticket in history.

Now, with the introduction of policies and regulations, many places have opened test sections for self-driving vehicles. Didi, Baidu and other industry players have also tried manned road tests and launched self-driving taxi services for the public. The self-driving car service scene that was once only seen in science fiction movies is now becoming a reality.

Autonomous driving is actually forced out

It turns out that autonomous driving was forced out.

Every year, more than 1 million people die in road traffic accidents worldwide, of which more than 90% are caused by careless driving. In metropolises like Beijing, it is common for highways to become parking lots during rush hours. According to statistics, the direct and indirect economic losses caused by traffic congestion in Beijing amount to hundreds of billions of RMB each year, and the air quality problems caused by traffic congestion have also affected the lives of tens of millions of citizens, becoming a social problem that cannot be ignored.

Autonomous driving can reduce the incidence of traffic accidents and improve travel safety. At the same time, the real-time path planning of autonomous driving can select the best driving route for the vehicle, reduce traffic congestion, improve transportation efficiency, and achieve energy conservation and emission reduction.

In addition, people have never stopped exploring innovative travel methods. Autonomous driving is to turn drivers into passengers, freeing them from boring driving operations and allowing them to do more valuable things on the road, such as reading, listening to music, and mobile office.

Three major challenges before implementation

Although Tesla recently announced that its autonomous driving system will be significantly upgraded and is expected to reach level L5 this year, there are still many difficult problems to solve even for mass production of level L3 autonomous driving cars. Not to mention the lack of Internet of Vehicles infrastructure and relevant laws and regulations necessary for autonomous driving cars to be put on the road, which are three major obstacles before their implementation.

First, the technology development is difficult and the cost is too high.

Key components of high-level self-driving cars, including AI chips, integrated circuits, and lidar, are still in the early stages of research and development. These chips have not yet passed market testing, and the actual effect is still difficult to determine. Automotive-grade lidar is also facing great challenges. Its size, cost, and reliability cannot fully meet the requirements of automotive pre-installation, and there is still a long way to go before mass production. In addition, in order to ensure safety, the functional safety level must be improved, and upgrades must be made from hardware to software, which is bound to bring about the problem of excessive costs.

Second, it takes time to improve the infrastructure of the Internet of Vehicles

The industrialization of autonomous driving requires the interconnection and coordinated development of vehicles, roads, clouds, networks, and maps. Although there are many innovative explorations in vehicle-road collaboration (V2X), due to the difficulty of cross-industry coordination such as transportation, communications, and automobiles, it is still necessary to overcome technical barriers and accelerate the implementation of applications. Building a 5G-V2X network, creating a comprehensive big data and cloud platform, and promoting the informatization and intelligent transformation of road infrastructure are by no means overnight achievements.

Third, the lack of relevant laws and regulations

There are many conflicts between the use of self-driving cars on the road and the current laws and regulations, including the Road Traffic Safety Law and the Highway Law, which do not involve self-driving and have no clear legal definition. For example, the lack of identification of traffic responsibility will cause customers to have many doubts when purchasing self-driving cars, which will affect the marketization of high-level self-driving cars.

ADAS, the only way for autonomous driving to evolve

Although the road from technical maturity, commercial maturity to regulatory maturity for autonomous driving is long and arduous, the industry's goal of achieving autonomous driving is clear and firm. Global automakers are vigorously promoting the research and development of autonomous driving products. To achieve fully automated driving without human intervention, three conditions must be met - the vehicle fully understands the environment and takes corresponding actions according to environmental changes, while ensuring the safety of the vehicle itself and information security. This is inseparable from the continuous evolution of advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) technology.

The main function of the ADAS system is to provide the driver with relevant information such as the vehicle's operating conditions and changes in the external environment, and to perform analysis and give advance warning of possible dangerous situations, allowing the driver to take appropriate measures in advance to avoid traffic accidents.

According to a recent report released by market research firm Research And Markets, the global ADAS market will reach $67 billion by 2025. As a global technology solution provider, Avnet has seen the huge business opportunities in the automotive electronics market and has launched its own brand ADAS solutions, which not only support blind spot detection, surround view, emergency braking, fully automatic parking assistance, parking and other intelligent controls, but also provide 3D high-definition real-time driving, high-definition nighttime real-time driving, 2D high-definition surround view/road sign recognition images, lane departure warning/collision warning system and other functions to effectively avoid traffic accidents.

What's even more considerate is that the "Driver Driving Status Monitoring System" in Avnet's ADAS solution can accurately identify the driver's mental state and behavior. When the driver yawns or falls asleep, the car automatically activates the automatic driving system and takes over the vehicle in time to ensure driving safety. It can even sense the driver's emotions and play the driver's favorite music to soothe his mood. In the future, cars will no longer be cold machines, but a considerate and warm partner that better responds to people's needs from the perspective of "people".