Jinan, Shandong: Driverless Cars Equipped with BeiDou Positioning System Perform Test Runs

Road test of Jinan 5G communication intelligent network vehicles was officially launched on January 22. “Driverless” intelligent passenger cars and trucks integrated with BeiDou navigation, artificial intelligence, IoV, cloud computing and other innovative technologies were put on the road for trial runs.

On that day, in the test area of intelligent network cars in Jinan, the reporter saw that the “driverless bus” and “driverless electric truck”, developed by Sinotruk, are running side-by-side on the road. The driver’s seat is equipped with a safety officer, “liberating” hands and feet, and does not require operation of the steering wheel, brake, clutch and other auto devices. In case of traffic lights, pedestrians and obstacles, the vehicle can slow down and stop by itself.

Tian Lei, vice director of the automotive electronics design department of the technology development center, Sinotruk Group, said that the “driverless bus” integrates the autonomous driving system, IoV system, platform monitoring system, safety control system, automatic door opening and closing system, and automatic parking system when arriving at each stop. Equipped with lidar, HD camera, integrated navigation and positioning, and other electronic equipment, it can operate safely all the time even in complex circumstances such as night, fog, rain and snow. “In the future, they can be widely used in airport shuttles, industrial parks, large communities and other scenarios.”

“Unmanned electric truck” is equipped with battery module, BeiDou positioning system, lidar, millimeter-wave radar, camera and other equipment, supplemented by a number of artificial intelligence technologies. Tian Lei told the reporter that, fully loaded, the car can travel up to 120 kilometers, and be fully charged in less than 1 hour. “For now, we are using road tests to pilot vehicles in different scenarios, collecting large amounts of data, improving the technology and gradually turning them into ‘master drivers’.”

“The intelligent network automobile industry deeply integrates automobile, electronics, information and communication, road transportation and many other industries,” said Ji Peide, director of Jinan Economic and Information Technology Committee at the scene. Jinan has a good industrial base, policy environment and system guarantee, advanced manufacturing and steadily developing digital economy, laying the foundation for the development of intelligent network automobile industry. In the future, Jinan will open more road sections for test, improve multi-point layout 5G test, and conduct, with intelligent auto city as the carrier, extensive cooperation and exchanges with domestic and foreign industries to promote the development of intelligent driving industry.

It is learned that the test road for intelligent network vehicles is currently located in the high-tech zone of Jinan city, with a total length of about 4.8 kilometers. In order to meet the demand of intelligent network vehicles for 5G network, Jinan has specially built 5G experimental base station in the test area to achieve full coverage of 5G signal on the test road.