Editor’s note: The following was translated and edited from a report that appeared in the military affairs section of Chinese news portal 163.com. It concerns China’s first unmanned car, developed by the Military Transportation University, which recently completed a 114 km journey on the Beijing-Tianjin highway in real traffic—a major milestone in the quest to achieve completely automatic driverless vehicles. While driverless technology is nothing new to the world—countries like Germany and the United States have been experimenting with similar technologies since the 1980s—this breakthrough illustrates that China has been catching up fast and may even become the world leader in unmanned vehicles in the not so distant future.
At 10:50 on November 24, after completing its 114 km drive along the Beijing-Tianjin Highway, a black Hyundai SUV dubbed "MTU Lion III" stopped at a toll station. The journey, a demonstration of fully autonomous driving without human intervention, successfully passed all of the pre-established tests with flying colors.
Changing lanes, passing, braking, turning: check, check, check, and check
That morning, starting at Taihu checkpoint and ending at Dongli checkpoint, the MTU Lion III completed the 114km course in 85 minutes, going an average speed of 79.06 km and a top speed of 105 km. The driverless vehicle successfully completed 33 passes, 36 lane changes, 1,816 accelerations, 30 brakes and 11,812 directional changes along the way. According to standard guidelines, driving lanes for intelligent vehicles include four-lane, three-lane, and two-lane highways, as well as on-off ramps. Major test challenges included driving along a line, following a lead car, changing lanes, passing vehicles in a neighboring lane, and active passing. For safety, the vehicle was equipped with mechanisms to allow a human operator to intervene instantly in the case of an emergency: "There is a change-over button in the car, because during autonomous driving mode, the steering wheel won’t react to human touch," explained Professor Xu Youchun of the Military Transportation University.
Interestingly, the research group had originally planned to have an obstructing vehicle purposely maneuver to the front of the "Lion" to help test the driverless vehicle’s overtaking ability. But due to complicated highway conditions and heavy weekend traffic, many drivers performed this role unwittingly, ostensibly without realizing the car they were passing had no driver, thus eliminating the need for the research group to intervene.
Experts hope intelligent vehicles can be used in more areas in the future
At the testing site, Li Deyi, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, explained that the applications of intelligent vehicle research are not limited to completely autonomous vehicles. Normal, human-driven vehicle design will also benefit from such intelligent vehicle technology, especially when it comes to safety and handling in dense urban traffic: "For example, city sanitation vehicles could be driverless in the early morning when there are few cars on the road; this would save on human resources." According to reports, Military Transportation University will conduct another autonomous vehicle test some time next year on urban roads. "We’re currently working on traffic lights and four-way intersections, later research will focus on snow driving, and the use of infrared technology for night driving," said Li.
"The ultimate goal of autonomous vehicle driving is essentially to turn automobiles into robots," Professor Xu told reporters. In-car navigation, reverse-drive radars, and automatic parallel parking are technologies already currently available, but they all still require a human operator. "Our development goals are for vehicles to orient themselves to human behavior. With more road experience, self-driving cars will be able to learn and imitate the habits of human drivers."
Source: 163.com
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Keywords: China driverless car China intelligent vehicles China autonomous vehicles
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Anything has to be better than the current system where everyone drives however the hell they feel like driving. I have never lived in a place where almost the entire population see's every traffic law as a "suggestion". From the little things like jay walking to the big ones like putting your car in reverse on the highway(happened to me in a taxi last week because the driver missed the exit). I haven't seen one law followed with any kind of consistency in my three years here. At least in the big cities most people stop for red lights. In smaller towns I have been to, when cars are going through intersections, whether the light is red or not they don't stop. They just honk their horn while going the the light. I guess the honking is to warn anyone that is "stupid" and following the rules to get the hell out of the way. It's almost comical, until you start thinking about how many people are killed everyday in China because the police here can't be bothered to enforce traffic laws. In my opinion the government here is crazy to throw away the gold mine that is traffic law enforcement. On my block alone, if there were just one policeman handing out 100RMB tickets for jay walking, the government would make close to a million RMB a day!
Jan 06, 2013 18:56 Report Abuse
would never work in china. morons can't accept not driving like morons. they would take the car to a shop to have the programming hacked so the car will drive like a retard. and when the car is driving head on into a truck they will have that dumb smile on their face.
Dec 24, 2012 07:06 Report Abuse
The title of the article says it all! "Unmanned Intelligent Cars" would work far better than "Manned Ignorant Driving," which is currently the status quo.
Dec 23, 2012 10:57 Report Abuse
"Are Unmanned Intelligent Cars the Future of Chinese Driving?" Can it be any worse? Selfish cunts who think they are better than everyone else because they have overpriced cars, aren't making a good case for themselves. Bring on the robots
Dec 23, 2012 00:37 Report Abuse
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