Has the era of driverless cars arrived? An interview takes you into the world of smart cars

When talking about the future development of driverless cars, smart cars are always the first issue mentioned, but the real future of driverless cars must be the powerful combination of smart cars and smart roads.

With the strong support of 5G communications, the technological development of vehicle-road collaboration will have a significant leap in the future. However, like smart cars, the intelligence of roads also faces various difficulties. Especially for complex road conditions like China, relevant technologies are needed to develop a route with Chinese characteristics.

To this end, at the OFweek 2019 China Internet of Things Industry Conference held recently, OFweek Smart Car Network conducted an exclusive interview with Chen Yingjie, Secretary-General of the Internet of Things Professional Committee of the China Electronic Commerce Association. Secretary-General Chen shared his insights on the future development of technologies such as vehicle-road collaboration and unmanned driving and the various problems they face.

The following is the interview transcript, compiled by OFweek Smart Car:

OFweek Smart Car:

my country is about to enter the 5G era, and its transmission speed and low latency provide strong support for the Internet of Vehicles, allowing transportation to move towards a smart future. In this context, what problems do you think the application of 5G technology in vehicle-road collaboration will face in the future?

Secretary General Chen Yingjie:

The first possible problem is naturally in terms of road applications. 2019 is the first year of 5G communication technology, and its application in the Internet of Vehicles is definitely not limited to cities. Especially for highway sections, it is a scenario where vehicle-road collaboration technology is prioritized, which requires the coordinated promotion of government traffic management departments, industrial and information technology departments, and operators. As Minister Miao said, the most likely priority application of 5G is in smart cars, so the coordination of various departments and its laying on the road is a major problem now.

Secondly, after the roads become intelligent and digital, there needs to be a unified coordination or standard for how vehicles interact with roads. This issue requires relevant companies to work together with different competent departments to conduct research and formulation.

Solving the above two problems will greatly promote the application of 5G in vehicle-road collaboration.

OFweek Smart Car:

In fact, driverless cars and smart transportation are mainly aimed at solving traffic congestion and safety issues. So, as roads and cars gradually become intelligent, how much change will it bring to the congestion, accidents and other problems we face today?

Secretary General Chen Yingjie:

Taking highway traffic as an example, after it becomes intelligent in the future, the vehicle's location on the road and lane can be determined through precise positioning and other technologies, thus subverting the current model of charging by lifting barriers at entry points, and the major problem of congestion at toll booths on highways will be solved.

This is actually a prediction problem that can be achieved after the road is intelligent. Road factors such as traffic lights and real-time road conditions will be predicted through communication between the car and the road, thus affecting the choice of driving path and behavior, especially alleviating congestion problems on highways. For example, the detection distance of laser radar or millimeter wave radar may be 50 meters, and it is not clear what accidents are beyond 50 meters. But road intelligence can increase this 50 meters or 100 meters to 50 kilometers or 100 kilometers. In this way, the entire road is transparent to the vehicle. Therefore, this kind of intelligence, especially on highways, can not only reduce the R&D and manufacturing costs of autonomous driving itself, but also enable the entire autonomous driving to be implemented 2 to 3 years earlier.

Prediction also plays an important role in safety issues. Accidents on highways can be basically solved. However, the current unmanned driving is still difficult to deal with the complex road conditions in cities, but drivers can obtain more information for analysis and prediction. At the same time, intelligent roads can also greatly improve the efficiency of traffic management departments, extend their management scope and capabilities, and thus reduce the accident rate.

OFweek Smart Car:

Big data is a foundation for the future development of smart transportation. At present, the information systems of various departments are relatively independent, and the ability to perceive and collect traffic information is limited, resulting in big data not fully realizing its due value in the construction of smart transportation. What are your opinions and suggestions on this?

Secretary General Chen Yingjie:

In fact, in the past two years, some domestic companies have focused on this aspect of work. For example, Alibaba's City Brain is actually the process of digitizing a city. Such work will definitely generate a large amount of data with potential value for traffic management. In fact, in the future, in the construction of vehicle-road collaborative smart transportation, a large number of companies will emerge in the technical field, which is difficult for government departments to touch. Therefore, it is necessary for government and enterprise resources to communicate and establish a reasonable data sharing mechanism to realize the value of big data and promote the development of smart transportation.

OFweek Smart Car:

In recent years, when talking about intelligent connected cars, whether for automakers or parts suppliers, technology itself is not the bottleneck, but regulations and infrastructure construction are the key constraints. What kind of planning do you think should be made in terms of regulations and infrastructure?

Secretary General Chen Yingjie:

As for the issue of laws and regulations, my country currently does not have any clear relevant provisions. But in fact, all regions have a very positive attitude towards autonomous driving. Many local governments have corresponding road test regulations, which designate certain specific sections of road to support the testing of autonomous driving technology. However, the introduction of national-level policies must be based on a fully mature foundation. However, the country will also gradually provide policy support from testing applications in relatively closed environments such as airports, ports, mining areas, and industrial parks, to major projects such as the Beijing Winter Olympics, Tongzhou Sub-Center Intelligent Transportation, Xiongan New Area Smart City, and then to urban open roads. Promote the implementation of autonomous driving in an orderly and guaranteed manner.

China has always been jokingly called the "infrastructure maniac" for infrastructure construction. At the same time, China's acceptance of new things and technologies is much higher than that of developed countries such as Europe and the United States. At the same time, in the development of smart driving and smart roads, the future trend and strong support from the country are indisputable facts, so local governments will definitely take the lead in trial and strengthen the construction of related facilities.

In the future, based on the bridge of 5G, roads will be made transparent, and cars will have "clairvoyance and super hearing". By coordinating smart cars and smart roads, we can create an entire smart transportation network and an entire smart city.