Since the official announcement of the car on March 30 last year, every piece of information about Xiaomi's car has attracted much attention from the outside world, and in the case that most competitors' mass-produced models have been listed, the mass production of Xiaomi automobile in the first half of 2024 is not too early.
However, a large number of patent applications show that Xiaomi's car manufacturing has entered the acceleration stage, and automatic driving is the key to it. Recently, Xiaomi has applied for a number of patents in a row, most of which are patents for motors and electronic controls, and one of the patents on adaptive cruise is particularly eye-catching.
At present, Xiaomi Group has more than 800 automotive-related patents, and most of them are concentrated in the fields of automatic driving, intelligent cockpit, and vehicle networking, and it can be said that Xiaomi's technical reserves are still guaranteed. In fact, if you search for Xiaomi Auto Technology Co., Ltd., you can only see a few patents, and most of Xiaomi's patents on cars are under "Xiaomi Mobile Software Co., Ltd." and "Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd.", and since 2015 and 2016, a large number of patents have been registered, which is enough to see that Xiaomi has been coveting cars for a long time.
Make a friend with you, and cost is key
The patent, entitled "Adaptive Cruise Start-Up Time Adjustment Method, Device, Device and Storage Medium", includes:
Detect the current parking time of the current vehicle in response to detecting that the adaptive cruise function of the current vehicle is turned on and in a static state of following the vehicle; and detect the target information of the current vehicle in response to detecting the current starting time of the adaptive cruise function;
Based on whether the target information satisfies the set exit conditions, the current vehicle is controlled to exit the adaptive cruise state or the current starting time is extended.
This patent can achieve accurate and reasonable adjustment of the start time of the adaptive cruise function based on the target information of the current vehicle, which can reduce the hardware requirements of the vehicle, thereby reducing the hardware cost of the vehicle, and because the vehicle can be avoided from frequently exiting the adaptive cruise state, the passenger experience can be improved.
At present, the common L2 level driver assistance system has the function of ACC adaptive cruise, and the adaptive cruise function of most models can only work during the movement of the vehicle, and cannot continue to work after the red light of the vehicle or other conditions are stopped, requiring the driver to reopen the function, and even reproduce the adjustment of the distance and speed of the car, causing inconvenience. If the starting time of adaptive cruise is too long, the requirements for hardware such as sensors and controllers of the vehicle are higher, which will increase the hardware cost of the vehicle, and how to reasonably determine the starting time of adaptive cruise has become one of the technical problems that need to be solved urgently.
Xiaomi's patent is to solve this pain point problem, you can detect the vehicle condition and target information, seemingly a simple function, but this requires the overall grasp of the vehicle's perception system for the environment, as well as the chip algorithm cooperation, from the driver's point of view, analysis of the driver's intentions, behind the supplement to a considerable amount of computation, this patent also for Xiaomi's automatic driving to lay more foundation. At the same time we see the word cost, we so hope that Xiaomi made a car, but also hope to appear again similar to the "1999 yuan smart phone" products, with low prices and we make a friend, of course, in order to achieve low prices, cost reduction is essential, this patent for cost considerations, it is also so.
Make a friend of Micar, also have lidar?
Combined with the currently published Xiaomi patents on automatic driving, as well as partners, I think Xiaomi will take the vision + lidar + vehicle-road collaboration of the automatic driving program, although the cost may be higher, but it can be believed that Xiaomi for the supply chain cost control, as for the pricing at that time... Let's take a look at the following configurations first. My opinion is not out of thin air, combined with another patent for an autonomous driving camera announced by Xiaomi on April 5, we can see the clues.
Xiaomi's patent - CN216184878U, is a way of camera arrangement, intended to solve the existing technology is often used to detect the camera to capture the surrounding environment of the vehicle to obtain environmental information, because the detection camera in different distances and positions of the image is easy to produce blurred pictures and other issues, easy to cause the vehicle to make a wrong judgment in the process of automatic driving.
In the patent, Xiaomi will arrange two camera modules in the roof part, one set in the front for front view, and the other group in the rear, for observing the rear of the vehicle, which is very rare in the current mass production car. Although there are cameras on the top of the WEIO ET5 and ET7, they are both looking forward; the Xiaopeng G3 is arranged with a 360° camera that can be lifted and rotated in the model, but it intelligently observes one direction at the same time. Xiaomi's innovation this time can bring more redundancy to the perception system, and the rearview camera at a high level can be less affected, strengthening the perception ability. In fact, the current mass production of the new forces model for the rear of the observation demand is not large, such as the latest ideal L9, other lenses are equipped with 8 million pixels, and the rearview camera to 2 million pixels, become out of place, and the lens rearview lens is generally only one, Xiaomi this time said that the rearview top is installed at least one, there will be a rearview camera on the body, which greatly increases the perception of the rear.
Although it is currently felt that there is no demand for automatic driving for the rear, but with the general improvement of intelligence, the safety of the rear is also the safety of the automatic driving system to consider, and Xiaomi cars are to be delivered in 2024, when the automatic driving laws and regulations will also have corresponding changes, intelligence will be more in-depth, and it is necessary to make more redundancy.
In this patent, the arrangement of other cameras and millimeter wave radar is nothing special, and the current model layout on the market is much the same, but it is clearly stated later: the vehicle also includes a lidar module, wherein the lidar module comprises a solid-state lidar, the solid-state lidar is mounted on the top of the body, and the field of view and resolution of the solid-state lidar are set to be adjustable.
Xiaomi to make a friend to us is really full of sincerity, lidar is also arranged, in view of Xiaomi's previous investment in Hesai Technology, it can be basically determined that Xiaomi will be equipped with Hesai Technology AT128 in the future, with 128 independent lasers inside, which can simultaneously emit 128 lasers in the vertical direction for scanning. Through the chip 128 channels of solid-state electronic scanning, and the point cloud in the horizontal and vertical direction of the full field of view of the uniform distribution without stitching, can provide image-level ultra-high resolution and structured data similar to the camera, which is the ideal L9, Lotus Eletre used lidar.
The patent also mentions: and / or, the lidar module comprises a mechanical lidar, the mechanical lidar is mounted on top of the body, and the mechanical lidar having a rotatable laser emitter. Rotatable mechanical lidar is unprecedented in current production models, and most of them are used for autonomous vehicle test vehicles, which is too expensive and unsightly, which will make the overallity of the vehicle worse. But Xiaomi wants to use such a configuration, which can really open our eyes.
And Hesai Technology is similar to the patent said product - Pandar128 image-level ultra-high-resolution high-performance lidar, if you want to carry it, it is estimated that it can only be it, because Pandar128 is the only 10Hz corresponding horizontal angle resolution of 0.1° 360 degree surround view lidar on the market, is also the only single echo maximum point frequency of more than 3.4M point / second 360 degree surround view lidar, support double echo, Using an ambient temperature range of -40 to 85 degrees, it has active anti-interference functions, is equipped with diagnostic functions accurate to each line, and has a network security design that is immune to hacker attacks.
The patent also mentions: Alternatively, the lidar module further comprises a blinding radar, the blinding radar having a hemispherical angle of view, the front side of the body, the rear side of the body, the left side of the body and the right side of the body are provided with at least one of the blinding radar. This configuration is mostly used in the military field, especially in air defense systems, and it is unheard of to carry it on a vehicle.
This solution is also expected to come from Hesai Technology, Hesai's new close-range ultra-wide-angle lidar QT128. It's a blindfolded radar for self-driving applications like L4-level robotaxi and robotruck, with an ultra-wide vertical field of view of 105° that clearly identifies people and objects at close range around the body. The QT128 will be delivered in series production in the first quarter of 2023. Through tilt installation, it can completely cover the blind area of the body, conical barrels, small animals and other low obstacles, and can also detect high places such as three-dimensional garages and high-rise buildings. Through flexible mounting positions, the QT128, combined with the long-range main radar, can make the autonomous vehicle obtain a complete field of view of 360 degrees, both near and far.
Xiaomi's patents, hidden so many other manufacturers have not used the solution, can see its innovative boldness, of course, the above hardware configuration is not low cost, millet to really make friends with our consumers, the cost problem must be the key.
Hardcore perception + vehicle-road coordination ≈ perfect
In the recent Xiaomi car patents, we can also see some content about vehicle-road collaboration, in addition to the above hard-core perception, the vehicle-road collaboration system must be the key to future automatic driving, which has given us an example by 5G-V2X of Weilai ET7. Xiaomi's invention patent of "automatic driving control method, equipment and storage medium" automatically adjusts its own automatic driving ability level according to the road level of the current road, improving the degree of automation of automatic driving and improving the user experience.
At the same time, Xiaomi's patent "System Information Transmission Method, Device and System Between Vehicle Networking Devices" proposes a technology that can allow the synchronization and information transmission between devices through the broadcast system information between the internet of vehicles, and control when to judge the transmission of additional system information between two vehicle networking devices, thereby greatly simplifying the system information structure, saving the time and frequency resources of system information transmission, and improving the efficiency of system information transmission.
Through the above patents, I can support my automatic driving scheme of taking vision + lidar + vehicle-road collaboration.
If the above configurations, stacked together, the cost problem has become more severe, from the current hardware and software configuration, the hardware configuration of automatic driving has surpassed the ET7 and the ideal L9 of Weilai, and these two are already 40-500,000 level players, millet if you create a competitive model, the price may be higher than them, then how happy to make friends?
Of course, this may be the configuration of Xiaomi's flagship model, just like Xiaomi's Mix series, and xiaomi, redmi, xiaomi youth version of the corresponding model, is not expected to have such a complete configuration, this part as a volume model, if these fist configurations are not inevitable some sincerity is not enough, but if they are given, the price will definitely make rice noodles cry, this is also the place of millet contradictions, and even I expect that low-end models are likely to make xiaomi cars lose money, in the early stage of word of mouth first hit out, with the increase in production and sales, in the spread of low costs , so that the sincerity of making friends is enhanced.
Here is also to mention a point, Millet car is expected to be officially listed in 2024, then the cost of various types of intelligent hardware will also decline, 2024, 2025 is also a variety of assessment predictions in the large-scale lidar on the time node, then millet stepped on the shoulders of the predecessors, enjoy the cost dividend of Wei Xiaoli These predecessors with "blood and sweat" in exchange for the cost dividend, may become the ultimate winner?