The significance of rocket grading, like a relay race, is to accelerate step by step, faster and faster, until it is enough to escape the gravitational field of the Earth.
Author | Ding Yi
Edit | Wen Liang
Robobus, a fully driverless car without steering wheel, driver's seat, brake throttle, hit the road in Wuhan. Named "Sharing Bus", it was jointly created by Qingzhou Zhihang and Dongfeng Yuexiang, and was officially unveiled today.
The two sides announced that they will carry out long-term in-depth cooperation in the fields of front-loading mass production, customized development, optimization and iteration, and jointly explore and practice the innovation of the commercial operation mode of unmanned driving, and the first batch of 50 Sailing Buses will be landed, and 300 Sailing Buses will be gradually landed nationwide in the future.
It is understood that "Sharing Bus" will land the "rail transit + unmanned microcirculation" scenario in Junshan New Town, Wuhan Economic Development Zone, and be applied to a number of unmanned connection lines.
This is an important step in Wuhan's "Driverless City" plan. At the same time, it is also an important part of the strategy of Light Boat Intelligent Navigation to achieve the goal of "bringing unmanned driving into reality".
Last weekend, Qingzhou Zhihang also released a video demonstrating a driverless car moving freely during the city's evening rush hour and picking up and dropping off online passengers. A series of veteran driver-like skilled operations seem to have made an advance endorsement for The Haring Bus's technical capabilities.
In just over two years since its establishment, Light Boat Zhihang has achieved full unmanned driving of open roads during the peak period of the city. At the same time, as a leader in the field of Robobus, the "rocket-like" development speed of Light Boat Zhihai has been revealed. The concept of "building rockets", which has been proposed since its inception, is becoming a reality.
In the author's opinion, from the entry of the Robobus track to the deep binding with the car factory, this "rocket" has also run out of the commercial trajectory of light boat and intelligent navigation.
Open up the technical base, the fastest realization of Robobus commercialization, the first stage rocket propulsion success
On this past Christmas Day, the James Webb Space Telescope was successfully launched, which carries the grand vision of human exploration of the universe.
Carrying it, the Ariane 5 rocket is a two-stage, semi-structural launch vehicle that, through multi-stage propulsion, has sent the most powerful space telescope ever built by mankind into a predetermined orbit.
"The significance of rocket classification is like a relay race, accelerating step by step, faster and faster, until it is enough to escape the gravitational field of the Earth." Yu Qian, co-founder and CEO of Qingzhou Zhihang, said.
Such a principle can be fully corresponded to the field of science and technology business. Once the technical foundation is firmly established, coupled with a clear and clear business path, it can achieve a growth rate that far exceeds the industry average like the rocket's first-, second-, and third-stage acceleration, and stand out from the crowd.
In the field of unmanned driving, this is not the case.
Now it seems that the first stage of the rocket of Light Boat Zhihang is to first rapidly commercialize in the field of Robobus and reach the leading position, so as to efficiently use massive high-quality data to consolidate technical capabilities.
In the past few years, there have been many driverless innovation companies in the field of Robobus and Robotaxi. Compared with OEMs choosing the path of step-by-step evolution from L2, L2+, L3 and L4 based on the existing vehicle scale, it is indeed a different approach to cut directly from the public transportation track.
But in the view of Light Boat Zhihang, Robobus is the scene of the fastest actual landing of L4 automatic driving.
First, Robobus is driving at low and medium speeds, and the passengers' expectations for speed are controllable, and the speed is maintained between 20km/h and 50km/h. It is an application scenario that is very suitable for the initial development stage of autonomous driving.
Second, Robobus's driving route is fixed, the vehicle can be repeatedly honed on the same line, more able to ensure driving safety, and can be combined with V2X to achieve traffic light priority and early warning. This is one of the biggest advantages over Robotaxi.
Third, Robobus belongs to the multi-person travel scene, which has significant social benefits under the trend of "four modernizations". Moreover, combined with the application of urban rail transit microcirculation connection, the market demand and market capacity are very large.
Such a clear strategic thinking foundation lays the foundation for the commercialization and replication of Robobus.
But to achieve this goal, two major problems need to be solved:
The first is to solve the efficiency problem in the iteration of technology;
The second is to solve the problem of balance security and scale in landing deployment.
These two problems, Qingzhou Zhihang also has a clear plan, all condensed in their full-stack autonomous driving solution Drive-by-QCraft.
The efficiency of the iteration of driverless technology depends largely on the efficiency of data processing. In other words, there should be more data, better quality, and more use.
Just like a novice practicing, if you only practice on the road in front of your home, it is not a good summary to go home, even if you practice every day, it is difficult to improve your driving skills.
It seems a bit absurd, but this is the real problem faced by the mainstream model of relying on "stacking people and stacking cars, real car road testing", the cost index increases, the scene coverage is incomplete, and the feedback efficiency is still low.
The self-driving tool chain "Light Boat Matrix" introduced by Light Boat Zhihang not long ago is the core competitiveness of Light Boat Zhi Hang. It opens up a data automation closed loop with simulation as the core, which can automatically screen, label, and quality inspect the real vehicle road test data with high quality, and put it into training and evaluation.
Simulation is like a metacosm, even after the road test vehicle is picked up, the algorithm can complete millions of trainings, test verifications and iterative optimizations every day in this space. Just like before going to the exam room, you can do countless meditation games in your brain, which can be described as "five years of college entrance examination, three years of simulation".
The Light Boat Matrix enables technical iterations to get rid of manpower and vehicle dependence, and can efficiently verify and issue the production-level algorithm version, making Light Boat Zhihang unusual.
In terms of landing deployment, the balance between hardware configuration security and scale is the focus of the industry. Heaping cameras and heaping lidar can certainly improve safety, but it also disregards the cost of bicycles, so Light Boat Zhihang chooses the practice of two lines going hand in hand.
On the one hand, it is to achieve 360-degree perception without blind spots and no dead ends, and adopt fully redundant design in modules such as sensors, computing platforms, power supplies, and communications to ensure safety and reliability.
On the other hand, the hardware solution can support Robotaxi and Robobus at the same time, so as to achieve the efficient deployment of a set of solutions in different models and different cities, and can also be configured according to the needs of the scene. Cost amortization through high-volume deployment and mass production.
Open up the automated closed loop of efficient data iteration, security and reliability can be guaranteed, and hardware solutions can be deployed across platforms... This series of chain effects of Driven-by-QCraft prompted Light Boat Zhihang to complete the commercialization of Robobus with the fastest speed.
In just one year, Qingzhou Zhihang successfully tested and operated in 10 cities around the world, including Beijing, Shenzhen and Suzhou in China, deploying 10 models of vehicles and a fleet size of more than 100 units. Among them, the Dragon Boat ONE series is also the Robobus with the most open roads in the domestic layout city.
Judging from this achievement, the first-stage rocket of The Light Boat Zhi aviation has been successfully promoted and accelerated.
Teng"volcanic cloud", borrowing "Dongfeng", strong out of the circle in the passenger car track, the second stage rocket officially launched
With its own full-stack technology, the implementation of robobus scenarios is completed in depth, and the next step is to work with partners to expand in horizontal scenarios.
At the beginning of this month, Qingzhou Zhihang appeared at the launch of ByteDance's volcano engine products, and for the first time disclosed to the outside world the "Light Boat Matrix" of the autonomous driving tool chain it created.
Volcano Engine, as one of ByteDance's two major 2B businesses, announced this year that it will fully enter the cloud computing infrastructure market. According to 36Kr, Volcano Engine will focus on one of the autonomous cloud services, strongly cut into the intelligent automotive industry, and compete head-on with Huawei and Baidu. The strong binding with Light Boat Zhihang has just made up for ByteDance's lack of experience in autonomous driving technology and the number of fleets.
Reminiscent of the rumors of ByteDance's investment in Light Boat Zhihang at the beginning of this year, the two seem to have been prepared for entering the passenger car market together.
This appearance, it can be said that the secondary rocket that opened the light boat intelligent flight, on the basis of the realization of unmanned driving technology and Robobus commercial run, united with the top giants to achieve the layout and iteration of new scenes, quickly "out of the circle", ushered in more imagination space.
Nowadays, Qingzhou Zhihang has married Dongfeng Yuexiang, the first batch of 50 Sailing Buses, and will gradually land 300 Sailing Buses nationwide in the future.
Dongfeng Yuexiang is backed by Dongfeng Motor Company, one of the four major automobile groups in China and a veritable top giant in the domestic passenger car market.
Among them, there are four symbolic meanings.
Illustrates that the maturity of the technology has been verified
This is the embodiment of the acceleration results of the first stage of the light boat zhihang rocket, and it is also the basis for cooperation with the car manufacturer. Just like the unmanned vehicle video displayed by Qingzhou Zhihang, it is almost capable of many common driving scenes in the evening rush hour. For example, when encountering a vehicle in the same direction reversing, it will slow down while turning to avoid it easily; when encountering multiple lane change congestion, lane change hesitation, and line-pressing vehicles, it will give way reasonably; when turning at the intersection, it will steadily avoid the takeaway brother, and will also return to the garage to park.
According to Yu Qian, this car is also equipped with the same model as the Roboboobus of Light Boat Zhihang - Driven-by-QCraft solution. This maturity is not only the industry-leading algorithm, but also the degree to which cost control can be commercialized. After joining hands with automakers, we will prepare for large-scale landing.
Explore more application scenarios for driverless driving
From urban buses, ride-hailing cars, commuter shuttle buses, to delivery vehicles, patrol cars, carrier vehicles, etc., in the field of public transportation and public services alone, the driverless technology of open roads has a large number of application scenarios.
On the one hand, the versatility of the hardware solution of light boat intelligent navigation can be quickly put to use. On the other hand, Qingzhou Zhihang can also focus on these new scenarios, exert its experience in the commercial operation of unmanned driving, and explore more business models with car manufacturers.
Reuse experience and data from different cities and traffic environments
China is vast and vast. Different cities, the geographical environment is very different, and even the driving habits of people in different regions are also very different. The development of autonomous driving technology should be people-oriented, and its application scenarios cannot be just a flat, regular plain road.
For example, the influence of Chongqing's mountainous terrain, the steep slopes of roads, tunnels, and the accurate positioning of unmanned vehicles are a big challenge. In September this year, Qingzhou Zhihang joined hands with partners to build the country's first 5G unmanned Robobus fleet for mountain urban traffic scenes in Chongqing, collecting a large number of steep slopes, tunnels and fog scenes.
With the help of Robobus business, Light Boat Zhihang has widely reached the traffic environment of different cities. Through the light boat matrix, light boat zhihang can help the car factory cope with various challenging traffic environments in the shortest time and achieve large-scale landing of automatic driving.
The value of the closed loop of data automation will be fully unleashed
The cooperation with the depot will allow the light boat matrix to play a role on a larger stage. With the large-scale landing of unmanned driving, the number of smart cars continues to rise, and the amount of data generated by them will reach a terrifying order of magnitude. For individual passenger car manufacturers, the screening, labeling and training of data will be a huge cost.
Under this trend, the value of the data automation closed loop with simulation as the core of the Light Boat Matrix will show higher industry value and become an indispensable internal power and left arm for car manufacturers.
At that time, Light Boat Zhihang is expected to not only continue to lead the industry in the number of landing fleets, but also in the dimension of the landing scene, it may also be from points and surfaces, touch bypass, and continue to expand at a "rocket-like" speed.
Teng "volcanic clouds", borrow "East Wind". At present, Qingzhou Zhihang has reached cooperation with the upstream and downstream of the industry, which is expected to accelerate the step-by-step landing of the whole scene of unmanned driving, and finally usher in the comprehensive landing of the third stage rocket outbreak - Robotaxi.
Like the James Webb Space Telescope carrying the Ariane 5 rocket, which carries the human dream, the rocket built by the light boat intelligent navigation contains their infinite imagination for the future of unmanned technology.
How fast this rocket can be is worth looking forward to.
END
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