When L4 autonomous driving knocks on the door, it’s so close, yet a little far away

Let’s first feel the charm of L4 autonomous driving.

This is the L4 autonomous driving challenge I conducted at Continental’s Tech Show in Frankfurt, Germany. After watching this video, I think it is necessary to explain the following questions:

What is the essential difference between the L4 autonomous driving in the video and the domestic L2+ intelligent driving assistance?

The picture above shows the hardware differences and functional definitions of Continental Group for different levels of intelligent driving. It can be seen from this that the biggest difference between L2+ and L4 is the installation of lidar and dedicated computing units, and this is completely independent of network support. .

According to engineers on site, the current L2+ level computing unit cannot meet the computing power of L4, so an independent processing system must be used to analyze the signals from each sensor and issue instructions in combination with software. At the same time, in order to have better precision control, L4 is inseparable from the support of lidar.

In terms of use, what L2+ can currently do is to be hands-free, but you still need to pay attention to the road conditions at all times. With L4, everyone in the car becomes a passenger, and there is no driver to talk about.

Can L4 autonomous driving only be used for new energy vehicles?

Although this L4 self-driving car is very tightly wrapped, as expected, it should be a very common Passat. However, it is fully armed and has a large number of sensors installed throughout the car, including lidar on the roof. Millimeter-wave radar, vision cameras, etc. The most important thing is that there must be a processor that fills the trunk.

Although many wiring harnesses are still exposed, this car clearly demonstrates the possibility of traditional cars achieving L4 autonomous driving.

Apart from regulations, how far away is L4 from us?

In fact, as early as 2018, many countries and regions around the world have implemented L4-level vehicle road tests, but five years have passed. In addition to regulations, the biggest obstacle restricting L4 autonomous driving is computing power. From the above, Passat Looking at the trunk, it really illustrates this problem, so Continental is committed to developing a vehicle control high-performance computing unit. It is a flexible platform that integrates Continental and third-party software applications and services, providing diversity, security and interoperability. In order to enhance the performance of the multi-operating system environment, it also has sufficient scalability and can improve performance through stacking.

Not only that, Continental is also making continuous breakthroughs in software. For example, this on-site processing system can scan and identify the environment through purely visual cameras. The recognition accuracy is comparable to lidar, but with the support of sufficient computing power, It can greatly reduce costs and accelerate the application of L4 technology.