Chinese tech giant Baidu has successfully tested its driverless car on roads near the company’s headquarters in Beijing.<\/p>\n
The 30km (18.6 miles) test route required a modified BMW 3 Series to navigate “complex road conditions”, including human drivers, the firm said.<\/p>\n
The car executed a range of manoeuvres, including U-turns, lane changes and merging into traffic from ramps.<\/p>\n
Baidu has amassed a library of 3D road maps to guide its autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n
“Fully autonomous driving under mixed road conditions is universally challenging, with complexity further heightened by Beijing’s road conditions and unpredictable driver behaviour,” said Wang Jing, senior vice-president of Baidu and general manager of the company’s Autonomous Driving Business Unit.<\/p>\n
Baidu’s highly automated driving (HAD) maps capture road data in 3D to within a few centimetres of accuracy, according to the company.<\/p>\n
The car is able to detect vehicles, road lanes and objects in its path.<\/p>\n
Samsung shake-up<\/strong> The Wall Street Journal reports that the company will begin by developing in-car entertainment, or infotainment, systems.<\/p>\n “It sounds a sensible move for them – whether it’s driver assistance or towards automation, there’s going to be a lot of development of the sensors, communications and the cloud computing,” Alan Stevens, at the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory, told the BBC.<\/p>\n As for Baidu’s prototype, Mr Stevens pointed out that the particular roads chosen for the test route would be indicative of the car’s true capabilities.<\/p>\n “I wonder whether we’re talking about very well made-up highways with good markings, the question is how does it work in more rural areas,” he said.<\/p>\n Self-driving derby<\/strong> And a Japanese firm, Robot Taxi, has developed a plan to provide self-driving cars to people in Kanagawa, south of Tokyo, in 2016.<\/p>\n It’s not all plain sailing, however.<\/p>\n Google’s prototype has been involved in nine crashes since testing on public roads began, though the company has said these are all the fault of humans, not the car’s autonomous technology.<\/p>\n In one incident, for example, people in a Google-piloted Lexus suffered whiplash after a human-driven car crashed into the back of it while it was waiting in traffic.<\/p>\n Finally, Elon Musk’s high tech firm Tesla has had to limit the automatic steering and lane changing functions in its autopilot mode for drivers in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n A report in the International Business Times said that Hong Kong’s Transport Department was still reviewing the software to ensure that it complied with the country’s regulations.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chinese tech giant Baidu has successfully tested its driverless car on roads near the company’s headquarters in Beijing. The 30km (18.6 miles) test route required a modified BMW 3 Series to navigate “complex road conditions”, including human drivers, the firm said. The car executed a range of manoeuvres, including U-turns, lane changes and merging into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":173565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[18],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSeparately, South Korean firm Samsung announced that it would be launching a new division which will make car components for automotive vehicles.<\/p>\n
\nCompetition is certainly heating up in the driverless vehicle space. Recently, German manufacturer Daimler tested a self-driving truck in motorway traffic.<\/p>\n