918 is strong, this week Tesla version upgrade, Uber officially launched a driverless taxi

Tesla still grabbed the headlines this week, and the Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system will be upgraded on the 21st of this month. Uber also took an important step in the field of unmanned vehicles and was the first to open its service to the public in Pittsburgh, USA. In this way, Googleâ€™s self-driving car project gradually lost its first-mover advantage and was surpassed by competitors. This made employees very anxious.

-- North America--

1, Tesla released the system update of Autopilot 8.0, radar identification tool

Tesla Motors announced that its semi-autopilot Autopilot has been upgraded to make it safer to use. In this upgrade, Tesla switched the main sensor of the entire system from the Mobileye camera to ultrasonic radar and millimeter wave radar. Tesla said that the new system can detect up to six times as many neighboring objects as the old system without hardware upgrades. In summary, Tesla Autopilot 8.0 will rely more on radar detection than the previous main camera and image processing system.

2. Nvidia Launches a Small Vehicle Unmanned Artificial Intelligence Computer

U.S. chipmaker Nvidia this week demonstrated a smaller, more efficient, self-driving car artificial intelligence computer, and said that the product will be used in Baidu maps and driverless car technology. Nvidia unveiled this computer at the GPU Technology Conference in Beijing. The new Drive PX 2 computer has a power of 10 watts and is half the size of the first-generation product announced in January this year. The Drive PX 2 uses a single processor that captures the data acquired through the sensors and uses a deep neural network to generate complex images of surrounding objects. This computer can solve a major problem faced by automobile manufacturers when integrating driverless technologies: how to integrate artificial intelligence into compact computers to help cars make decisions.

Uber announces unveiled taxi service in Pittsburgh, USA

According to Uber official, Uber driverless car travel service has officially opened to the public in Pittsburgh, the United States, the service only sent an invitation to 1000 loyal users who use Uber service most frequently. Uber's first driverless cars were customized based on the Ford Fusion model (namely, domestic Mondeo). The body is equipped with 20 cameras and 7 laser transmitters, most of which are located on the roof, and a few are installed on the front and the vehicle. tail. The lid's lidar scans 360 degrees continuously, feeds real-time feedback of road surface information into the on-board computer and forms a real-time three-dimensional image, which constitutes the â€œseeingâ€ external world of the unmanned vehicle. In addition, the antenna located on the roof provides GPS positioning and wireless connectivity.

At the beginning of opening to the public, Uberâ€™s every driverless car is equipped with two staff. One is in the driverâ€™s seat and is responsible for the control of the vehicle at any time. The other engineer sits in the co-pilotâ€™s seat and is responsible for capturing real-time. The road surface information data, and carry on all technical debugging and safeguard work at any time.

4, Velodyne launches 3D sensor designed for driverless cars

According to foreign media reports, following the joint venture between Baidu and Ford Corp., which was awarded US$150 million last month, Lidar Laser Company Velodyne LiDAR announced the launch of its new PLD Hi-Res 3D sensor, a LiDAR (laser detection and measurement) sensor. This sensor can provide higher resolution images than ordinary 3D sensors. This sensor, like its predecessor, the VLP-16 Puck, includes support for 16 channels, 360-level field-of-view scanning, and 100+ meters of effective distance. However, the biggest difference is that this new product will support 20 vertical field of view scanning. Velodyne LiDAR said that this product has begun to accept reservations and is expected to be shipped after eight weeks.

-- Asia --

1. Tesla investigates the death of a car accident in China: whether auto-driving is to be confirmed

CCTVâ€™s â€œOnline Ruleâ€ column reported that in January of this year, a rear-end collision occurred in the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao high-speed Hebei section of the city. A Tesla sedan directly hit a road sweeper that was currently operating, and the Tesla sedan was damaged on the spot. The driver was rather unlucky and died. The traffic police investigation found that before the collision, the car accident, Tesla, did not perform any avoidance and deceleration, and kept the speed of the road crashing into the rear of the road sweeper in front of the construction work. According to a Reuters report, Tesla Automobile Co., Ltd. issued a statement on Chinaâ€™s first accidental auto-pilot accident caused by CCTVâ€™s exposure, saying that it is investigating a fatal car accident in China earlier this year but â€œhad no way of knowingâ€ what happened. Whether the vehicle has enabled its "Autopilot" semi-autonomous driving function at the time of the accident.

2. Valeo plans to upgrade Lidar in two phases

The head of Valeo's R&D team in Japan will introduce the companyâ€™s high-performance laser radar â€œSCALAâ€ to be launched in 2017. Audi has decided to use Valeo's high-performance laser radar in 2017. Valeo plans to upgrade in 2019 and 2022 in two phases. The second generation of products in 2019 will increase the detection angle in the vertical direction by about 3 times: â€œNot only can pedestrians be detected with higher accuracy, And it is easy to detect front obstacles in three dimensions." The 3rd generation product launched in 2022 will eliminate the movable part used for high-angle laser irradiation, and the performance such as detection distance and angle will remain at the same level as the 2nd generation product.

3, Didi and Xquik reached a strategic cooperation, the platform added 20,000 new energy vehicles

In response to the country's call for green energy conservation and emission reduction, Didi and Uber China signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Quickstep Car Rental. According to the agreement, Quickstep will successively launch 20,000 new energy electric vehicles to operate on the Didi Uber platform and take the lead in Zhejiang. The two sides will also achieve strategic cooperation in the use of vehicles for government and enterprises, and mobile experience. "Fast-step car rental" is a company that operates a rental car in Hangzhou. During the G20, Dickey and Uber China have jointly invested 100 new energy vehicles as service guarantee vehicles in combination with Quickstep Car Rental. The batch of service vehicles and the more than 1,000 electric vehicles of the same model will be put into the Dickey and Uber China platforms to operate the car.

-- Europe --

1. Audi will strengthen cooperation with BAT on in-car systems and maps

Audi recently signed a letter of intent with Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent. Specifically, Audi will collaborate with Alibaba in the development of ultra-high-definition 3D maps and real-time use of traffic information; it will work with Tencent to develop car chat (WeChat) services; and Baidu plans to jointly launch similar to Appleâ€™s â€œCarPlayâ€ in 2017. "Car networking services to share mobile apps in cars. Audi ranks first in the high-end car market in China, and will work together with outstanding domestic IT companies in the field of Internet services to compete against rivals such as BMW (BMW).

2. Volvo self-driving car enters the public beta phase

The first Volvo XC90 off-road vehicle used to participate in the Volkswagen Drive Me self-piloting car test phase has been rolled out of Volvo's production line in Torslanda, Sweden. The unmanned car used in this beta test can be used on a designated route in the designated city of Gothenburg. It is estimated that approximately 100 vehicles will be tested and will be open to the public next year. The open-ended Volvo XC90 sport utility vehicle is equipped with various sensors, including lidar, radar and conventional cameras. This year's test is a fully automatic driving of the target L4 level, which is more desirable than the L3 level Tesla Autopilot.