Experience Xiaopeng cross-floor memory parking, even across three floors of parking, 1.3 kilometers of the whole process without takeover

Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)

The author | Hao Han

Edit the | Juice

Xiaopeng Automobile has put black technology again, once again greatly solving your parking problem.

From the last kilometer inside the parking lot that used to be solved, the last two kilometers can now be solved, and for the first time, cross-floor support is supported.

This means that regardless of whether the destination parking space is on the first few floors of the underground parking lot, as long as the total route does not exceed 2km, the vehicle can find its own parking space.

Before the memory parking begins, the driver is first required to manually drive the car into the basement, complete the first parking, and the system can remember your driving trajectory and parking space. The next time you come to this basement and open cross-floor memory parking, the vehicle will automatically drive to the parking space of the last memory, and then complete the parking.

▲Xiaopeng P5

Che Dong was also invited to experience this system on the Xiaopeng P5. In order to test its ability to cross floors, the car also carried out a total distance of nearly 1300 meters, through the limit test of three ramps, the result is that Xiaopeng P5 successfully completed cross-floor memory parking, and the driver did not take over the whole process.

In general, Xiaopeng's system has reached the point where the car can be completely driven by itself when it goes down to the basement.

At present, automatic parking systems are very common in mass production vehicles, but most parking systems need to drive slowly next to the parking spaces to identify the parking spaces, and then open and slowly reverse into the garage. And because the parking space identification process is complex, the accuracy is not high, and the driving speed is slow, the practicality of the automatic parking function is not high, and many car owners do not use it.

With the cross-floor memory parking function, after reaching the basement, the whole process of parking can be handed over to the vehicle for operation, no longer need to go through the difficult identification parking space process, no longer need to worry about the "twists and turns" of the up and down ramp, practicality can be said to have a qualitative change.

First, after the lever can be opened, only the basement is supported

Xiaopeng P5's VPA parking lot memory parking, APA intelligent parking is exactly the same as Xiaopeng P7, but because Xiaopeng P5 is equipped with lidar, it can achieve cross-floor parking function, and at the same time, the memory parking route mileage has increased from the previous 1 km to 2 km.

When Xiaopeng P5 comes to the entrance of the underground parking lot, the driver needs to drive in by himself first, and after driving through the toll booth and the lifting pole, the vehicle can enable the VPA-L cross-floor parking lot memory parking function (hereinafter referred to as cross-floor memory parking).

At present, Xiaopeng P5 has not been able to identify the guard posts and lifting poles at the entrance and exit of the underground parking lot, and all operations are completed by human drivers before entering the parking lot.

▲Passing by the guard post, you can open the memory parking

Like other driver assistance functions, the Xiaopeng P5 needs to be used after the user reads the instructions and completes the test before turning on the cross-floor memory parking function.

It is understood that scenes such as open-air parking lots, dimly lit parking lots, unclear parking space lines, irregular parking spaces (side orientation), mechanical parking spaces, etc. cannot use the parking memory parking function.

▲Some scenes of parking cannot be used to remember parking

The reason why they did not choose to start from the open-air parking lot, Xiaopeng's technicians also told Che Dong that because the environment of the open-air parking lot is more complex and not a closed environment, there are more traffic participants and the scene is more complicated.

Therefore, Xiaopeng Automobile chose to start with the underground parking lot. The memory parking function of other scenes such as open-air parking lots and parking buildings is already being planned.

The instructions also describe some of the situations that the driver needs to take over during the memory parking process, including the vehicle exit/storage in front, the special-shaped intersection, the crossing of vehicles and pedestrians, the narrow road meeting, the narrow or half-open iron gate, etc

In addition, Xiaopeng Automobile also "intimately" introduced some situations that need the driver to keep an eye on, including children, pets, open doors, fire hydrants, etc.

▲Some scenes that require the driver to take over immediately

Of course, the premise of using the cross-floor memory parking function is that the hardware of the vehicle must reach XPILOT 3.5 and the corresponding software services are activated, and the vehicle-machine system needs to be upgraded to Xmart OS 3.1.0. Models that are not equipped with lidar cannot achieve cross-floor memory parking, and vehicles need to rely on the ability of lidar to accurately identify obstacles and distances on the ramp, so as to learn and use the cross-floor parking lot route with ramp.

Therefore, at present, only xiaopeng P5 P series models (equipped with lidar) are on sale to meet the requirements.

Second, first take the car to recognize the road, and then you can remember the parking

After passing by toll booths and lifting poles, vehicles can park across floors for memory.

If the vehicle has come to the parking lot and set a memory route, then the vehicle can directly select the memory route and start parking, and the vehicle will start parking according to the previously remembered route.

If the vehicle has not been to the parking lot before, it needs to be completed by a human driver once, and the vehicle can be memorized and used the next time it comes back. In addition, users can also complete parking according to the memory line uploaded by other car owners to the Xiaopeng Automobile APP.

▲Open the operation process of memory parking

When a human driver takes the Xiaopeng P5 to "recognize the road" in the basement for the first time, the speed of the vehicle needs to be kept within 15km/h. The staff of the same company told the car that the vehicle could not drive too fast during the memory process, otherwise the memory would be easily interrupted.

Compared with the previous Xiaopeng XmartOS 2.6.0 parking memory parking (VPA) function, the cross-floor memory parking function pushed this time can support 2km of memory lines at the farthest, which is 1km higher than before. With this extra kilometer, parking will become more comfortable in some large commercial supermarkets, residential areas and other large underground parking lots.

▲The memory parking line made by the car thing

When the vehicle completes the memory route, the driver shows that the memory parking function has been unlocked, and can also display the total distance traveled by the memory route, the number of speed bumps, the number of ramps, and the entire memory parking road map.

In addition, the owner can also upload the memory route to the Xiaopeng Automobile APP, when other car owners come to this parking lot, they can directly download the route to use.

▲Memory parking is unlocked

Third, the continuous span of 3 floors smoothly berthed the whole process without takeover

After the vehicle has memorized the parking route, the vehicle can use the memory parking function when the owner drives to the starting position again.

First of all, the car chose a relatively simple parking route, the whole journey of 442 meters, through 5 speed bumps, a ramp.

In the process of driving, the overall experience is similar to the previous Memory Parking function of Xiaopeng, the driver only needs to click to confirm, and the memory parking will begin to work. Release the brake pedal and follow the route you learned to drive to the parking space you parked in the last time you studied, without the driver's operation.

But the difference is that this cross-floor memory parking has added the ability to cross the floor, which is also the focus of this experience.

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▲The vehicle completes the continuous turn ramp

The parking lot from the B1 floor to the B2 floor is a downhill road with two consecutive large angle turns, and the ramp angle is also large, which is a big "challenge" for many novice drivers.

When the curve is downhill, Xiaopeng P5 performance is relatively smooth, there is no brake stop in the whole process, and there is no excessive speed because of the downhill, and the speed has been maintained within 10km/h. When the vehicle turns, the steering wheel rotation amplitude is more reasonable, and the rotation angle and way of the human driver are basically the same.

▲Xiaopeng P5 downhill

After the vehicle enters the B2 floor from the ramp, the vehicle will follow the route of the previous memory to the memory parking space.

If the memory parking space has a car, the memory parking will exit and remind the manual takeover, and then the user can switch to APA smart parking and start looking for other vacant parking spaces. In addition, if the owner is worried about the memory parking space being occupied during the peak hours of the parking lot, he can activate the function of finding parking spaces along the way in advance in the memory parking process, the vehicle will search for free parking spaces along the way, the user can select the intended parking space, and the vehicle will intelligently park to select the parking space.

After successfully completing the first memory route with a relatively simple distance, the car thing was tested to a relatively extreme limit.

First of all, the car completed a memory route with a total length of more than 1200 meters, through 9 speed bumps and 3 ramps. However, since the parking lot only has two underground levels, the three ramps in the memory route are two downhill and one uphill, and the final destination of the vehicle is a parking space on the B2 floor.

This line can simulate the owner of the car on the B2 floor did not find a parking space, and then returned to the B1 floor to find no results, and then came to the B2 floor again to park. Of course, in the actual situation, the owner can open the function of finding parking spaces along the way, and the vehicle can directly park after finding the vacant space.

Although the probability of this route encountering in real life is extremely small, it is an "extreme" challenge for Xiaopeng's cross-floor memory parking function.

▲The second test route

In this long-distance memory parking, Xiaopeng P5 encountered a total of three meeting car scenes, the overall performance is good, the driver did not take over when the car, completely operated by the vehicle itself.

First of all, the first time the car, the opposite vehicle intruded into the driving lane of the car more, Xiaopeng P5 will automatically brake, and after the on-direction complete vehicle passes, the vehicle will continue to drive.

It is worth mentioning that when Xiaopeng P5 encounters this situation, the braking force is relatively large, and the vehicle can be braked immediately, although it affects the riding experience to a certain extent, but it can better ensure the safety of the vehicle in the memory parking process.

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▲Cross-floor memory parking is held

The second meeting car, the on-site vehicle intrusive car lane is relatively small, although the Xiaopeng P5 will also brake. But the difference is that this time, after the oncoming vehicle passed the front of the Xiaopeng P5, the vehicle completed the meeting with a little direction on its own, and did not wait until the oncoming vehicle completely passed.

The third meeting car, the opposite vehicle did not invade the lane of the car, xiaopeng P5 did not brake, maintain the original speed to complete the car.

In the test, The Xiaopeng P5 successfully completed the parking space across three layers (two next and one upper), and the driver did not take over the whole process, and the overall parking speed was within 15km/h.

It is worth mentioning that when making memory parking, whenever the vehicle passes the intersection, the vehicle will automatically flash the high beam lights twice, and when turning, the vehicle will automatically turn on the turn signals.

After completing the 1259-meter-long memory parking route, the car is ready to challenge the limits of cross-floor memory parking again, making a U-turn in place during the vehicle memory process and going back and forth to the upper and lower floors several times. However, the vehicle shows that due to the intersection of the route, memory parking is temporarily unavailable.

Subsequently, Che Dong also asked Xiaopeng's technicians, who said that a smooth driving route was needed in the process of learning to memorize the route in order to complete the memory of the route. Therefore, in the case of making a U-turn in place, reversing gears, etc., the learning route will be cross-regressed, the learning will be interrupted, and the memory parking function will not be used.

In addition, Xiaopeng's technicians also told the car that the main technical difficulty of cross-floor memory parking is the perception recognition of the ramp and the difficulty of motion control in the ramp. Cross-floor memory parking uses lidar to perceive the environment to build a three-dimensional space, compensate according to the slope to improve the motion control ability of the ramp, optimize the user experience under the premise of ensuring safety, and bring users a longer memory parking function.

Conclusion: Autonomous driving will become the core competitiveness of Xiaopeng

At the 2020 Xiaopeng P7 conference, He Xiaopeng said that Xiaopeng Automobile will realize many L2-level automatic driving functions such as high-speed autonomous navigation driving NGP, parking lot memory parking, traffic light traffic assistance, etc. in the future, and most of these goals have been achieved, and Xiaopeng Automobile's urban L2 function will also be launched within this year.

At present, Xiaopeng has been at the forefront of mass production automatic driving by adhering to the full-stack self-developed automatic driving system, and in the face of future travel scenarios, it is believed that Xiaopeng Automobile will continue to expand the boundaries of mass production automatic driving.