Huawei starts test for L3-autonomous vehicles on China's streets!

Huawei starts test for L3-autonomous vehicles on China's streets!

China - Huawei makes you serious! On July 11, Li Wenguang, President of the Intelligent Driving Solution Product Line von Huawei, announced that the company would like to start with the small series production of vehicles with Level-3 semi-autonomous driving skills. These vehicles should be designed especially for use on motorways in China. In addition, Huawei is planning to carry out tests of level 4 on city roads until the end of 2025. This is a huge step for the automotive industry and not only for Huawei itself, but for the whole market.

But what does that mean specifically? With this announcement, Huawei will be one of the first companies that actually push onto the market to integrate such technologies into everyday life for road users. However, there is still a lot of regulation work between the announcements and the actual use, because the company needs approval from Beijing before the drivers can access the technology. According to the standards of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the drivers can handle control over the car in a level-3 vehicle, but have to be ready to re-intervene at any time.

progress in the automotive industry

What about the competition? Other actors are also active in the fast -moving world of autonomous vehicles. At least ten Chinese automobile manufacturers now offer Level 2 Plus driver assistance systems that are equipped with lidar and other sensors. The manufacturers include sizes such as Xpeng, Li Auto, BYD and NIO, all of which jump on the train of advanced driver assistance systems in order to remain competitive. In particular, Xpeng has taken an important step with the P5, because it was the first series vehicle worldwide to enable Lidar to enable autonomous driving in urban environments.

The market still has a lot of room for improvement. According to a report by McKinsey & Co., China could become the largest market for autonomous vehicles, with a forecast sales of $ 230 billion by 2030. This means that balloon ride is far from over for many companies. The automotive manufacturers are faced with the challenge of either developing autonomous vehicles or entering strategic alliances with suppliers.

The role of Lidar in autonomous mobility

A decisive factor for progress in autonomous driving technology is lidar technology. "Light Detection and Ranging" allows vehicles to precisely identify their surroundings and reliably identify obstacles. Lidar works by sending out laser signals and analyzing their reflection to measure distances between objects and vehicles. In the best case, this enables an autonomous vehicle that brings its passengers safely from A to B without anyone sitting at the wheel-an idea that was not too long ago.

For car companies, however, the integration of Lidar harbors challenges. Conventional systems use large rotating mirrors, which are often difficult to integrate into vehicles and are susceptible to vibrations. Research teams, such as at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems, are working on new solutions: Your MEMS scanners offer compact dimensions with excellent performance. They enable vehicles to grasp their surroundings in all ranges and are stable compared to external influences. In addition, these innovative scanners can be integrated into existing systems inexpensively, which opens up a whole new dimension in the development of autonomous vehicles.

If everything goes well, we could soon see the first vehicles on our streets that drive without human influence. But the technology is only at the beginning, and it remains exciting to see how this market will develop.

For more information about Huawei's automotive innovations, visits technode. For an overview of the vehicle assistance systems in China, take a look at Next Big Future for technological development in the lidar area, take a look at the information from Fraunhofer.