No one bus without a steering wheel, do you dare to sit?
Cool blue and white orange gradient color, much smaller than the imaginary bus, go in to see, the space is open, there is no steering wheel, the screen shows the route and arrival information, the whole process of voice prompts. This is an unmanned bus carrying the driverless brain of a smart walker. When experiencing unmanned buses, I can't help but feel a little nervous. On the other hand, the safety officer, but calm and self-assured, looked at the passengers on the bus with a smile, and the smile gave us a lot of courage. When the bus drove up, it was slower than other vehicles, and the tension was suddenly much more relaxed.
This is how you feel when you try out an unmanned bus.
In August, at the 2021 China Wisdom Expo held in Chongqing, Zhixinger put unmanned patrol cars, cleaning car products "Snail Xiaobai", unmanned taxis, driverless buses and other products into the venue service and display, which is a representative product of Zhixing's cooperation in three major categories of industry cooperation around production and life needs, in ensuring life safety, reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises and improving passenger spiritual experience. This exhibition is not only another appearance of Zhixing in the field of artificial intelligence, but also another step forward for China in the field of unmanned driving.
The core team of Zhixinger is from the Department of Automotive of Tsinghua University, the technical ability is the top in the industry, since its establishment 6 years ago, the cumulative application mileage of self-developed driverless vehicles has reached millions of kilometers, and it is the first enterprise in China to realize the productization and commercial landing of unmanned driving. At present, the team has applied for 728 patents in total, and has complete independent intellectual property rights in unmanned driving technology.
Technology ultimately benefits mankind, how to make unmanned technology cope with different scenarios? For society, how long will we be away from achieving full driverlessness? How can driverless companies balance the relationship between commercialization of scale and innovative social productivity?
These are exactly what wise walkers are concerned about. As a driverless brain provider and industry enabler, Smart Walker continues to realize commercial and social values, and promotes the true arrival of the era of car sharing in the era of intelligent networking.
Hard-core technology casts industry barriers to the Internet of Everything in the future
The hard technology track represented by artificial intelligence is becoming the focus of attention in the capital market.
If you want to build a driverless car, which includes many upstream, middle, and downstream enterprises, as a system project, you need to cooperate with each other. The operation of a driverless car is as clear as the human body. We feel and listen to the world through our eyes and ears, and perform every action through our hands and feet, corresponding to the driverless car, the sensor is its eye and ear, and the actuator is its hands and feet.
The smart walker mainly focuses on the research and development of the "brain" of driverless cars, and uses the unique "brain" to empower various industries to build a smart life circle. The human brain plays a role in dominating various organs and limbs, and likewise, the driverless brain is the controller of the operation of the whole vehicle. "This controller contains algorithms at the software level - the autonomous driving software platform AVOS, the hardware level computing power - the autopilot controller AVCU, and there is data." Zhang Dezhao, chairman and CEO of Zhixinger, vividly compared these three core components to the "triathlon" of the unmanned brain in the era of artificial intelligence.
Laying out driverless tracks is not an easy task. From the Baidu Apollo plan in 2017 to the Polar Fox Alpha S cooperated by Huawei and BAIC this year, which business model can come out on top and occupy a place in the industry? Adhering to the combination of technology leadership and commercialization is a key measure for Smart Walkers to stand out.
From a technical point of view, the algorithms, computing power and data that make up the controller have become the focus of Chi Walkers in the field of unmanned driving. "After entering the era of artificial intelligence, as an algorithm application company, in fact, the key point of the whole technology lies in data." Zhang Dezhao believes that the ability to iterate through data algorithms is the key factor affecting technology. In terms of data, in addition to the data accumulated by self-testing, how to obtain data of richer scenarios at a faster speed and lower cost, so as to build a huge database that can fit the professional path, has always been the focus of Zhang Dezhao's attention.
The solution is to sell the product and let the customer return the data in an almost "cost-free" way during use. The scenarios applied by customers are different, and smart walkers can obtain richer data resources than self-testing, so as to continuously iterate on algorithms, and the updated algorithms can better serve customers and achieve "win-win" for both sides.
If the Internet is to connect people as the object of connection and service, then the Internet of Things is to extend the object of information network connection and service from people to things to achieve the "Interconnection of All Things". In the Internet era, the pipelines provided by the three major communication operators can quickly transmit information, although they break through the barriers of space and time, but they cannot let people experience "what they see is what they get". In the era of the Internet of Everything, freely moving cars can not only transmit messages, but also realize the fixed-point delivery of people or things.
"Once autonomous driving is achieved, the car will replace the operator in the Internet era as the 'pipeline'." Zhang Dezhao paints a picture of the future to us: in the future era of the Internet of Everything, we no longer need various types of APPS, and a driverless car can meet almost all needs. For example, recommend hotels near your destination according to your preferences, prepare items that your family lacks in the car... Imagine that the shared car operator who picks you up from work, through the Intelligent Refrigerator based on the Internet of Things, perceives that the eggs in your home are gone, and can place a box of eggs in the car in advance, without advertising, just need to prompt "insufficient eggs at home", you will most likely take this box of eggs home, rather than personally go to the supermarket to run errands.
The exchange and communication of information between things and things has to be admitted, and it has to be admitted that human beings are simply comfortable in the context of intelligent networking.
Thinking like this, the role of autonomous driving and its development trend can easily make many e-commerce platforms disappear into the torrent of technology.
It's not hard to see why Internet giants are flocking to get a piece of the pie. Only by accurately predicting the potential impact and having the awareness of thinking of danger in times of peace can we broaden an "extraordinary road".
Excellent technology and exquisite playing style to form a closed loop of technology landing scenarios, data and cash flow, so that Zhixinger becomes an unmanned enterprise in the industry with both open L4 technical capabilities and limited regional L4 landing capabilities. According to the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), according to the degree of control of the system on the vehicle handling task, the autonomous driving technology is divided into L0-L5. Reaching L4 means that the system is responsible for performing all the dynamic driving tasks of the vehicle, and begins to realize a complete replacement for the driver, so that the car itself has full environmental awareness, path planning and autonomous vehicle control.
Marathon tracks lead and prevent "cooperation rather than disruption" to empower traditional industries
"Entering the domestic driverless track is like participating in a marathon, which requires continuous technological innovation and accumulation, rather than relying on 100 meters to sprint, and we are only running 5 kilometers now." In Zhang Dezhao's view, the unmanned driving market has always had a very large potential space.
Technological innovation, the permission of laws and regulations, the construction of supporting infrastructure, and the real needs that are stimulated by the public's understanding and acceptance are the key nodes of this "marathon".
2020 can be regarded as the first year of the development policy of driverless and intelligent networked vehicles.
In February, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other 11 ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation Development Strategy", which clearly put forward the strategic goal of building China's standard intelligent vehicles and achieving an intelligent automobile power; in November of the same year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" and also put forward the high-level autonomous driving commercialization goal: by 2025, advanced autonomous vehicles will achieve limited area and specific scene commercial applications; strive to 2035, Advanced autonomous vehicles can be applied at scale.
It always takes time for people to accept new things, and the level of acceptance of the people is far from enough to rely on the introduction of policies and laws and regulations.
Like all emerging industries, the promotion model of Zhixinger customers also has to go through TOG, TO B, TO C, and the current driverless has entered the TO B era. If it is for individual users in the future, it will have to consider the cost and the acceptance of the public. "The results of the car factory survey prove that as long as the price does not exceed 10,000 yuan, consumers are still very happy to install driverless systems for vehicles." Zhang Dezhao said, "But at present, the industrial base of self-driving cars has not yet been fully realized, the cost is high, and the production volume is very small." This means that the cost of creating a driverless car is much more than an ordinary family car, so now put the "brain" into the family car, I am afraid it will play a half the effect.
Remember that when the Zhixing unmanned sanitation vehicle was just put into colleges and universities and communities, it basically could not work normally in the first half of the month. Out of curiosity, people "studied" this exquisite high-tech product around the sanitation vehicle, which impressed Zhang Dezhao the most - there were even people performing push-ups in front of the car to test the ability of unmanned vehicles to recognize tall and low obstacles. In the face of this "new friend", everyone's curiosity is self-evident.
Although the public's understanding of unmanned driving is constantly improving, if you want to popularize it all, achieve true commercial application, and create value for customers, driverless cars also have to go through a "two-end squeeze" path. What is the two-end squeeze path? "One end is within the road of limited area and speed, and the other is in a vast off-road environment. Both ends squeeze together to the open road suitable for business. Zhang Dezhao said.
Integrating the car into urban development and fully realizing its social value is also an important prerequisite for the people to accept driverless driving. -The application of intelligent networking will make the communication between cars and cars and roads a very common thing, and the arrival of automatic driving will reduce traffic accidents caused by human factors and effectively protect personal safety. This is significant for China, one of the countries most affected by road traffic safety in the world.
According to statistics, 130 billion minutes are wasted in traffic jams every day worldwide. In terms of life efficiency, the second social value of driverless driving is to liberate the hands and attention of drivers. People can use this confined space as a mobile terminal, and even develop it into a new life service platform. Eating hot pot in the car and leaving work, brushing a movie to get home, improving the efficiency of work and life. One day, the future car in the young pictorial will be redefined by this era.
However, as a high-tech product in the era of big data and the Internet of Things, the development of unmanned driving will inevitably have an impact on related industries and their workers, especially traditional labor-intensive industries, while bringing smart services to society. Machines replace a large number of manpower, and this part of the laborers are bound to face the impact of industry transformation and even layoffs. Because of this, unmanned driving seems to be recognized by some people on the opposite side of traditional industries. For the development of traditional production methods and unmanned driving, Zhang Dezhao has his own unique views.
"Partnering with traditional industries, not disrupting them." This is the opportunity that SmartWalkers see in the market. This kind of cooperation can be said to be mutually reinforcing. On the one hand, leveraging the advantages of manufacturing and sales channels in traditional industries is the icing on the cake for smart walkers with "brain" research and development technology; on the other hand, with the weakening of the influence of automobile brands, driverless driving has also found a new breakthrough to promote the transformation of traditional automobile manufacturing.
However, development and innovation will not happen overnight. Zhang Dezhao stressed: A ten-year transition period, that is, a transition period of at least ten years from manned driving to unmanned driving. The transfer and optimization of productive forces is not necessarily a good thing, we cannot stay here forever, the progress and development of science and technology will ultimately act on mankind and act on the entire era. Like europe, where horse-drawn carriages were prevalent, gentlemen did not expect that four-wheeled gasoline cars would one day completely replace the carriages that had once been fashionable, and coachmen would also have to face the optimization of skills from driving carriages to learning to drive.
Just like the marathon, driverless will also adjust the pace with the development of industry trends, and even go through troughs and transition periods, but in the end, once unmanned driving is realized, the automotive industry that originally entered the sunset industry will undergo a huge change in business model. This change is the transfer at the top of the value chain, from the depot to the operator, and also from TO C to TO B. Finding the opportunity to change the right to speak, from the supplier of automakers to the "community of interests" of automakers, has always been the result that Zhang Dezhao wants to see.
Have a dream and a heart to live up to the shaohua and the times
In 2011, after graduating from Tsinghua Automobile Department with a doctorate, Zhang Dezhao once wanted to stay in school as a teacher, which was undoubtedly the safest choice at that time. However, in the face of this stable job, his heart seems to have "sent something else". "At that time, China's ability to make whole vehicles had risen, but from the brake system and special systems of the engine to the chassis, none of the key components were done well." In Zhang Dezhao's eyes, China is still far from being a car powerhouse, "The state has cultivated me to cultivate in this field, then I will give back to the motherland with what I have learned." "Knowing and acting together, Zhang Dezhao wants to do something that relieves himself and lets Chinese technology lead the world." That's 10 years.
Therefore, in 2011, as the first batch of enterprises to settle in, Zhang Dezhao started his first business in Zhongguancun Dongsheng Science and Technology Park. The first attempt did not dare to be too aggressive, the company is mainly engaged in the research and development of automotive automation systems, providing auxiliary parts for car manufacturers. You know, it was less than a year before Google officially announced the development of self-driving cars, and there were almost no technology companies in China that developed self-driving technology. But over time, Zhang Dezhao found that "it is too hard to be an auto parts supplier, and the current situation and business model of the automotive industry should not be like this." After the first company was acquired, he began to think about the prospects of the industry and the second venture.
What about startup financing? Zhang Dezhao always remembers the first time he did a roadshow for Zhixinger, when an executive of a large company said to him: "Driverless is a very vain thing, it will not be realized." "Is it true that there is no future?" Zhang Dezhao asked himself this more than once.
Until the end of 2015, the self-driving car developed by BMW and Baidu was successfully tested on urban and high-speed hybrid roads, and unmanned driving returned to people's vision, completely breaking the "curse" that unmanned driving could not be achieved. The success of this cooperation has revived Zhang Dezhao's confidence, and more and more institutions have turned to invest in driverless driving. Therefore, he aimed at the opportunity to successfully obtain the first financing, returned to this "marathon" journey, and began a second venture in early 2015, ushering in the current Wisdom Walker.
With the valuable experience and industry resources of the first venture, Zhixinger quickly obtained orders from BAIC, Changan and other automakers and began a long process of project research and development. At that time, it was winter, there were not enough manpower at the beginning of the business, and the company's workshop had not yet been built, Zhang Dezhao led the team to brave the heavy snow to change cars and shunt cars outdoors, and produce Demos in small batches to reduce the cost of trial and error. In winter, the temperature in Beijing reaches minus zero, and frost has been quietly hung on the treetops. The delicate modification work is doomed to not be completed with gloved hands, the hands are frozen stiff, the face is blown by the cold wind, so I hold up a hot water bottle to cover it, and everyone's concentration point is always placed on the car.
A good business is an enterprise with a soul. As a start-up team, "Zhixing" has always twisted into a rope, strived for collaborative operation, and customer-centric service has always been the core concept adhered to by Zhixing. Zhang Dezhao has always believed that the organic combination of personal and corporate goals, everyone learns to take a step forward, filling the "gray area" in the development process, is the secret of enterprises to maintain rapid development. In 2016, the prototype car cooperated by Zhixinger and BAIC was displayed at the Beijing Auto Show and provided to the public for test rides; in the same year, in cooperation with Changan, the test of more than 2,000 kilometers of driverless Demo vehicles from Chongqing to Beijing was realized. Since then, Smart Walkers have begun to gain fame in the field of unmanned driving, and gradually entered the public eye.
An excellent enterprise is a responsible enterprise. In the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, Zhixing, as a hard technology company that can land unmanned driving in multiple scenarios, provided unmanned equipment for 14 hospitals in China. In Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital, disinfectants need to be sprayed every day, and disinfectants need to be atomized into the air, which makes strict restrictions on the material and specifications of the sprinklers. The New Year is used for reunion, and at this time, affected by the epidemic, many enterprises have stopped work and production, where do people go to find it? "If we don't do it, we will have less power to support." Zhang Dezhao replied resolutely. Therefore, he coordinated the opening of the property office building, persuaded the employees one by one, and organized everyone to come to work in the company on the fourth day of the first year; there was no special sprinkler, so he launched the national supply chain to find the transformation of the relevant sprinklers, replace the necessary pipelines, and worked for more than ten days and nights in a row, as a public welfare project, it was smoothly put into Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital to ensure the hospital's elimination work.
A good business is also a national enterprise. Huawei is an enterprise that Zhang Dezhao always mentioned in his mouth, and the combination of hard technology and hard bones is an important reason for him to appreciate and benchmark Huawei. Huawei has written a legend in 34 years, and Zhixing has experienced 6 years of ups and downs in the driverless industry, and has continued to support key areas in national construction. As a national enterprise, they rely on their hearts to think in one place, wisdom to seek in one place, strength to make a place, rely on unity and struggle, rely on the determination and perseverance to overcome difficulties!
"Since we are engaged in this industry, as a small part, we are willing to devote ourselves to national construction." When talking about this, Zhang Dezhao's gaze was firm and bright, it was a clear purity. The mind of the country and the world allows zhixing to continuously give back to the society in promoting the development of the country's hard scientific and technological strength, so that China will become a leader in the fourth industrial revolution led by the era of artificial intelligence.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics has entered the countdown, as the only automatic driving company among service providers, Zhixing will cooperate with Tsinghua University, Beiqi Foton, etc. to provide driverless ferries, unmanned logistics distribution, unmanned cleaning and other five models of autonomous driving solutions, to help the Winter Olympics and serve the world.
Not to live up to Shaohua, not to live up to the trust of the times, Zhang Dezhao led the wisdom walkers to show the ambition, backbone and confidence of Chinese technology companies, write forward into the difficult process of unmanned development, shoulder the responsibility on the shoulders, even if the thorns carry the road, still can work hard!
The driverless market is ushering in a "golden age" of rapid development. The algorithm decouples the scene to create a generalized "brain" for unmanned driving, and The Wise Walker has created its own blue ocean market for the sunset industry. In the future, with the steady improvement of unmanned infrastructure and the promotion of policies, we will eventually usher in a beautiful picture of driverless people completely moving towards public life.
Source: Smart Walker Technology