Info
Info

Baidu forms major alliance to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving

News

Qi Lu, Baidu's group president and COO, presents at Baidu Developer Conference in Beijing, China on July 5.

Info

Baidu announced that more than 50 partners have joined the Apollo open autonomous driving project, forming one of the largest and most diverse autonomous driving ecosystems to accelerate the development and adoption of autonomous driving.

Members of the Apollo alliance are from a wide range of sectors. They include leading vehicle manufacturers, such as Chery Automobile, FAW Group Corporation, Changan Automobile Group, and Great Wall Motors; tier 1 suppliers, including Bosch, Continental Automotive, ZF Friedrichshafen AG, and Desay SV Automotive, among others; key components providers, such as NVIDIA, Microsoft Cloud, ZTE, Velodyne and TomTom; startups, including AutonomouStuff and Horizon Robotics; and ridesharing companies, such as UCAR and Grab Taxi.

The alliance also extends to five top universities and six local governments, including Wuhu in Anhui Province, Baoding in Hebei Province, Yizhuang in Beijing, Chongqing Liangjiang New Area, and Shanghai International Automobile City.

Qi Lu, Baidu's group president and COO, made the announcement in Beijing at Baidu Create, the company's inaugural AI Developer Conference.

"Apollo is an important milestone for the automotive industry," said Lu. "It is in essence the "Android" of the autonomous driving industry, but more open and more powerful."

First announced in April, Apollo is an open platform that supports all major features and functions of an autonomous vehicle. The project, named after the historic lunar landing program to illustrate its scale and complexity, consists of cloud services, an open software stack, along with reference hardware and vehicle platforms.

Apollo is designed to bolster the work of any developer in autonomous driving, using high-quality source code and data, which developers can use as much or as little as they wish. Open source code portions can be modified, and open capability components are accessible through an API that can be replaced with proprietary implementations.

One of the biggest challenges to developing a robust autonomous driving system is having sufficient data to iterate the software and train the AI models. Apollo's simulation tools and services provide a key solution that is backed by vast amounts of actual autonomous driving scene data, which enables developers to accelerate software iteration and ultimately shorten the development cycle.

"Apollo is not solely Baidu's. It belongs to everyone in the ecosystem. And as we and our partners contribute to the platform in our areas of specialty, we all gain more, with the results far greater than just our own," Lu added.

As an open platform, Apollo's capabilities will be opened gradually, beginning with autonomous driving technologies for restricted areas in July and fully autonomous driving on urban roads and highways by the end of 2020.

At the Baidu Create conference, AutonomouStuff, a U.S.-based autonomous system components supplier, showcased two cars they converted into autonomous vehicles in just three days using code and capabilities provided by Apollo's first released 1.0 version. The two vehicles completed circuits around a short track near the conference venue.

"The data and technologies Apollo can provide will increase significantly as partners grow," said Robert Hambrick, founder and CEO of AutonomouStuff. "This means developers no longer need to do duplicate work developing low-level technologies but can spend more resources on later-stage development, which in turn will greatly accelerate the progress of the autonomous driving industry."

In a speech at the conference, Pradeep Gupta, senior manager of Autonomous Driving at NVIDIA said, "Apollo's strategy of opening up its resources is a step in the right direction. Through close collaboration with each and every player in the industry, we can more effectively build a new and complete autonomous driving ecosystem."

Before the kickoff of Baidu Create, Baidu and FAW Group Corporation, a major Chinese carmaker, unveiled a comprehensive cooperation agreement to jointly explore the commercialisation of autonomous driving technology. Qian Li, director of FAW R&D Center said, "FAW and Baidu will work together across products, technologies, services, and other areas to create an "Internet plus car" innovation cooperation model."

Chery Automobile also attended the conference as an important ecosystem partner. "With the joint efforts of Apollo's ecosystem partners, we hope to drive the construction of autonomous driving related laws and accelerate the mass production of autonomous cars," said Weiyi Lu, assistant general manager of Chery.


The Latest News, Brought To You By
Baidu forms major alliance to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving
Modified on Tuesday 4th July 2017
Find all articles related to:
Baidu forms major alliance to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving
TaaS Technology Magazine
Info
Targa Telematics Supports Leasys Miles In The UK
Volta Trucks Selects Meritor To Supply The Innovative Electric Drivetrain For The Volta Zero
How The Volkswagen ID.4 Communicates With Light
REE Automotive Opens New Engineering Center Of Excellence In The UK
AVL Advances Development Of Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine For CO2 Neutral Transportation
Ouster Achieves Major Automotive Grade Milestone
Riversimple And Siemens: The Beginning Of A Long-term Strategic Relationship
Plus Commits To Deploy Ouster’s Digital Lidar Sensors
Alauda Unveils The World’s First Flying Electric Racing Car
Trimble Teams With ROBORACE
Forward31 And Lufthansa Innovation Hub Launch Startup Partnership
Faurecia And Immersion Partner For Haptic Automotive Technologies
AIR Index Vehicle Emissions Rating System Offers First Realistic, Fully-fledged Alternative To Official Data
Daimler Plans Separation Into Two Pure-play Companies And Majority Listing Of Daimler Truck To Accelerate Into Zero- Emissions And Software-driven Future
Humax To Supply RAiDEA Mobility Service Platform In The Middle East
Kia Starts Pilot Of Last-mile Delivery Service In Singapore For Future PBV Business
Ford Raises Planned Investment In EV, AV Leadership To $29 Billion
Niro EV’s Latest Accolade Reinforces The Strength Of Kia’s Electric Vehicle Lineup
Abarth Launches World’s First Virtual Reality Test Drive Delivered To Homes
Kia Unveils Roadmap For Transformation, Focusing On EVs And Mobility Solutions
Cosworth And Delta Sign Agreement For Acquisition
Hyundai Motor Group Unveils TIGER Uncrewed Ultimate Mobility Vehicle Concept
Mazda First OEM To Join The EFuel Alliance
VivoPower Secures 100% Ownership Of Tembo E-LV B.V.
Info
Info
×
Search the news archive

To close this popup you can press escape or click the close icon.
Logo
×
Logo
×
Register - Step 1

You may choose to subscribe to the TaaS Magazine, the TaaS Newsletter, or both. You may also request additional information if required, before submitting your application.


Please subscribe me to:

 

You chose the industry type of "Other"

Please enter the industry that you work in:
Please enter the industry that you work in:
 
X
Info
X
Info
{taasPodcastNotification} Array
Live Event