At this summit forum, Volvo Cars announced that it had reached a cooperation agreement with telecom operator China Unicom. Both parties will promote the development of V2X vehicle-road collaboration technology in China, and research, develop and test the application of 5G and emerging V2X technologies in automobiles based on 5G next-generation mobile network technology. After the meeting, Xie Baojun, Senior Director of R&D in Asia Pacific of Volvo Cars, and Li Jun, CTO of Unicom Wang Zhi Technology Co., Ltd. also accepted an exclusive interview with the media on the specific implementation and landing of 5G and V2X technologies. The following is an exclusive interview:
Reporter: Please tell us about the cooperation between Volvo Cars and China Unicom. Just now, Teacher Yuan also said that 2020 is the first year of 5G commercialization. Could you please introduce the specific scenario of 5G commercialization?
Senior director of R&D for Volvo car Asia Pacific? Xie baojun
Xie Baojun: The cooperation between Volvo Cars and China Unicom has a long history. Our first cooperation was probably in 20 12, and the area of cooperation was also the internet of vehicles. The cooperation between the two sides on 5G-V2X is actually based on the cooperation we have completed in the first stage.
What everyone has been doing in the early stage is the AVP project, focusing on the field side. By adding 5G and V2X communication equipment to the existing L2 production vehicle, V2N, V2I and V2V technologies are integrated with the existing sensing equipment of the vehicle to realize unmanned parking service in specific scenes. If there are pedestrians and vehicles on the way, they can automatically avoid them. ?
CTO of Unicom Wang Zhi Technology Co., Ltd.? Li jun
Li Jun: As mentioned at the meeting just now, if 20 19 is the first year of 5G license issuance, then 2020 will be the first year of commercialization. We have achieved the first phase of cooperation with Volvo Cars, and hope to be as perfect as possible in the direction of commercialization in 2020. The previous discussions between the two sides were more conceptual.
Reporter: After completing the pre-research of AVP driverless parking service, will the two sides cooperate in the deployment of autonomous driving?
Xie Baojun: From the perspective of the whole equipment and application, there must be an iterative process. First, we will focus on ADAS, and then we will discuss autonomous driving. There is an iterative process.
Reporter: Hello, I have two questions. One is about 5G. Today, everyone talked about a lot of technical things, saying that 5G has larger bandwidth and faster speed than the previous 4G. What do you think is the biggest impact of 5G on cars next?
Xie Baojun: Around the 5G technology, we still have to talk about its low latency and high bandwidth, including the reliability of the connection. Next, in the car, 5G will empower the car to be intelligent in the intersection scene, thereby improving driving safety, such as the upgrade of ADAS technology, including the upgrade of pedestrian detection technology. In short, it will make the next trip more convenient and smarter.
Reporter: There is one more question. When do you think Volvo Cars will widely use 5G?
Xie Baojun: Volvo Cars plans to apply 5G technology to the next-generation Volvo products based on the next-generation extensible module architecture (SPA2).
Reporter: Hello, my first question is, what is the specific division of labor between the two sides in cooperation? The second question, I want to ask, do you think it is possible for autonomous driving to fully land in the 5G era?
Li Jun: Our division of labor is actually very clear. I need to make a statement before today's interview. I am the chief technology officer of Wang Zhiliantong, so today I represent Wang Zhi Unicom more than Unicom Group. Our cooperation with Volvo Cars has a clear division of labor. Volvo Cars is a global luxury car brand. China Unicom also has Unicom intelligent network, and our strong point is the service based on 5G network. Today's meeting also mentioned a sentence, "Smart cars, smart roads." To realize the road of wisdom, the foundation is to have a network. With the network, real-time traffic information will go up. Therefore, I personally feel that Unicom's work is more on the network side, and Volvo Cars is on the car side.
Reporter: Can fully automatic driving land in the 5G era?
Li Jun: This is an open question, and no one may know it in the future. First of all, 5G looks at battery life. Personally, I think, generally speaking, there are ten generations and one generation. If it is the first year, if we consider ten years later, I think there will be more variables if we make a prediction in a long time. But I personally think that if we look at the next two to three years, I personally think that unmanned driving in limited areas and unmanned driving based on vehicle-road coordination is completely possible.
Xie Baojun: I totally agree.
Reporter: Regarding the technical route of automatic driving of Volvo cars, I heard that Volvo cars actually drive directly from ADAS to L4. This is for security reasons, so L3 is skipped. Is that so?
Xie Baojun: Correct. At Volvo, we don't particularly emphasize grading. In our opinion, the level of smart cars can only be divided into two types. One is the driver assistance function (ADAS) that the driver must be fully responsible for, such as the Pilot that Volvo has already carried on the current production models. Auxiliary navigation system; The other is highly automatic driving (AD) which does not require human drivers to control the vehicle. Volvo Cars plans to launch the first highly autonomous production car in the early 2020s.
Reporter: Is the application of Volvo L4 class car based on its M brand to enter the tourism market, or is it the vehicle source of Uber?
Xie Baojun: Volvo Cars will directly launch mass-produced self-driving models for end consumers.
Reporter: I want to ask. As external observers, we find that "digital intermediate station" has been mentioned more frequently recently. So what do you think of the digital intermediate platform from a professional point of view? From the point of view of a car factory, what kind of deep value do you think Taiwan Province has in data?
Xie Baojun: The value of data is very great. Next, Volvo Cars will also focus on data protection and privacy protection, which means that data centers are necessary. The key is the effective collection, storage and use of data. For automobile manufacturers, from today's time, five or eight years later, a key core competence actually lies in data, and then services can be provided.
Reporter: Are there any cases?
Xie Baojun: This year, we will launch a new generation of infotainment system. I hope everyone will pay attention to it. In this generation of system, it completely realizes the so-called DBD, that is, data? Foundation? Development, data-driven development. For example, we will study the user's usage scenarios of the infotainment system, including how users navigate and how to use some data of the voice system, and pass the backhaul detection. To put it simply, the first step is to examine the user experience, and the second step is to predict and use data to guide the direction we need to pay attention to and invest in next.
Reporter: In data detection and transmission, is its frequency daily or what?
Xie Baojun: We can talk in general terms. In different scenarios and applications, data embedding and returning are different from project development from the beginning. Normal development, such as using CPU to open CPU? The load is calculated by the day, because this is what we do for CPU? Actual usage status of the load. But some scene applications are calculated in minutes and seconds. Our project is called One? Database is a very large data center, which usually has storage function. In fact, it is more important to obtain data on the vehicle side.
Reporter: Is it necessary to collect data regularly?
Xie Baojun: Like today, for example, there is a fixed frequency in the car, which affects the vehicle data and vehicle status. Now it is often the product that starts. Our project is expected to be put into production in March and April.
Reporter: In the cross-field cooperation of Volvo Cars, is the most critical capability in the chip or the sensor? In addition, if Volvo Cars is the central link of the industrial chain, what is the most important thing to grasp in order to maximize the value of each supplier?
Xie Baojun: Our whole attitude is openness and cooperation. Our own concerns about Volvo Cars are often platform construction, vehicle platform, electronic and electrical platform, including the computing platform under development, digital intermediate platform, user account system, in short, the construction of the whole platform. Next, we must cooperate with the best companies to optimize the capabilities of the entire platform for the user experience.
Reporter: Between you and Unicom, did Unicom give you some data or did Volvo Cars give it some data? I don't know if your's relationship is mutual, or will it technically analyze some data? Or what?
Xie Baojun: In the case of reasonable compliance, we have some things that Unicom does not have, but we do not have Unicom. So our advantages complement each other.
Reporter: I remember Volvo Car said that our R&D team in China took the main responsibility of R&D.. What role does it play in global R&D?
Xie Baojun: Let me say a few points. The first thing we know very well is efficiency. Volvo Car Asia-Pacific R&D Center has strong independent R&D capability, which can coordinate localization and globalization. The technology developed in China will be used all over the world. Second, we have no barriers with the Swedish headquarters, let alone a firewall, so as to truly realize the high efficiency of global R&D (Europe, America and Asia-Pacific), realize the global real-time sharing of R&D resources and achievements, and maximize the synergy with the global market. At the same time, different R&D centers work together. Then we have an absolute advantage in vehicle development. Next, I need to mention here that we will soon start to develop a brand-new car, which was completed by the R&D team in China.
Reporter: Is it a brand-new model?
Xie Baojun: A brand-new model is about to begin.
Reporter: In our plan for the next five years, aren't there high-level self-driving models? When will this model go on sale?
Xie Baojun: This model is based on the platform we are developing: SPA2. Of course, the specific launch time for different markets will be different, and the evolution speed of different functions will be different. But this new car will be based on the platform SPA2 that we are developing.
Reporter: As far as I know, Volvo Cars doesn't seem to mention some R&D cooperation with other car companies in public. I want to know, why doesn't Volvo choose to cooperate with another car company to develop autonomous driving technology to share the cost?
Xie Baojun: Volvo Cars adheres to the principle of openness in this field as in other fields. At the same time, at the strategic level, we will choose like-minded partners, including everyone's judgment on the technical route of autonomous driving, such as L3 mentioned just now, and everyone's requirements for the safety and reliability of the whole autonomous driving. This is very important.
Reporter: Can you understand this? For example, there are many companies that plan to launch L3 models, but because Volvo has different routes for autonomous driving, it will not carry out such alliance cooperation on some levels.
Xie Baojun: In fact, everyone's judgment on the whole user scene and user experience is different. At Volvo, we think L3 is uncontrollable, because there is no way to ask people to respond in milliseconds like a machine, which is very difficult.
Reporter: The route judgment is mainly different, so Volvo Cars has no choice to cooperate with other car companies?
Xie Baojun: This does not involve technology, and it is often a user scenario.
Reporter: Hello, I want to ask about the SPA2 platform. What is the biggest difference between this platform and the previous SPA platform? When does the first car appear?
Xie Baojun: Let me talk about it. The biggest difference is whether the two platforms can keep up with the new four modernizations in the future, such as whether some updates of vehicle electronic architecture can keep up. At present, this generation of SPA platform is still a pre-control solution, but the next generation is the central computing unit, including the whole communication network will be synchronized with the latest situation. The production time of SPA2 platform products is expected to be in the early 2020s, and the specific year needs further communication.
Reporter: I would like to ask, the number of cars in China is already very large, including Volvo cars. At present, when people talk about V2X, they are all talking about the realization of V2X in new cars in the future. Even after the new car realizes V2X in the future, there are still quite a few old cars. How do these cars already on the road realize V2X?
Xie Baojun: That's true. Because from the perspective of in-vehicle technology platform, the first thing is to have in-vehicle communication and support 5 G. In this area, it is difficult to update old cars, and then the intelligent technology of the car itself, including the radar and camera at the perception level, is difficult to access V2X. This is the real situation. What effect will the old car achieve? Through communication with intelligent transportation, old cars can also get information. From a technical point of view, for old cars, it is limited to this kind of tips and information sharing.
Reporter: On this issue, when will Volvo support the 5G-V2X models?
Xie Baojun: Volvo Cars plans to apply 5G technology to the next-generation Volvo products based on the next-generation extensible module architecture (SPA2). In other words, I will meet you in the early 2020s. Besides, I must define what we are talking about. Strictly speaking, it can be used to support V2X like ADAS and AD. Because you will find it in old cars, it will also support some infotainment systems mentioned just now. Can V2X be built in? Actually, this is different.
Li Jun: To supplement the question just now, we are also developing some intelligent hardware with networking function recently, which will be launched this year. But as Teacher Xie said, it is more of a function of information prompt.
Xie Baojun: Because if you want to apply the information just mentioned to vehicle control, you must reach the system level.
Reporter: Most people say that the domestic road conditions are so complicated that it is relatively simple not to go abroad, and it is even more difficult to collect information in China. Excuse me, what are the technical difficulties of our Volvo car in studying autonomous driving? What's the problem?
Xie Baojun: On complexity, in fact, every country is more complicated. If autonomous driving is to be truly realized, it must cross various scenes.
This topic can be taken as an example, such as SENSUS, which must be based on different markets, different data and different scenarios. There are many bicycles and electric cars in China, so the model training in different scenes is definitely different for different markets. But in this piece, there is no essential difference from the perspective of research and development. The difference between scenes definitely exists, and each market is different.
Reporter: What about information collection? Is it the same? Still difficult? ?
Li Jun: I think the coordination between vehicles and roads can provide some help to some extent. For example, why is the United States a bicycle smart route? To a certain extent, the first is that the local road conditions are relatively simple, and the second is that there are fewer people. So they want to do V2X vehicle-road coordination, which is less cost-effective than ours. In our country, we just said that the road conditions are complex, in other words, the population is dense. If we also deploy the Internet in a region and use the Internet to empower the entire ecology, the efficiency will be higher.
Xie Baojun: Next, in terms of research and development, when building this system, the solution is often project-oriented, such as identifying traffic lights through a bicycle camera. On the other hand, cars can communicate directly with traffic lights through V2X. For R&D, if the two are integrated, the first thing is to change the robustness, such as image recognition. The error probability of bicycle intelligence itself is one in ten thousand, and that of V2X technology is one in ten thousand. If the two systems are well integrated, it is multiplication, and the probability of error is even smaller.
Li Jun: The X in V2X stands for everything. It has many possibilities. I mentioned a lot of traffic lights just now, but if you imagine that every bicycle has a smart device, and even everyone wears a smart bracelet to connect the signals through V2X, it can well alleviate the difficulty of the complicated road conditions you mentioned.
Reporter: Just now, you two mentioned that Volvo Cars and China Unicom are studying the driverless parking service technology based on 5G AVP. At the same time, we are also concerned that some car companies may do some ADAS functions based on V2X. Has Volvo ever done the same job? If yes, is there a timetable for launching this function? For example, is there such a plan for the intersection reminder just mentioned?
Xie Baojun: This can simply review the route we have traveled all the way. About 20 16, Huawei and Tsinghua University, including Volvo Cars, participated in the 5G major science and technology project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. At that time, the research focus was on low latency and robustness. At that time, I talked about the AVP scene. The further development is the 20 18 Wuxi vehicle networking demonstration application project. Many car companies have participated, including Volvo Cars. Then 20 19, the most important thing is four spans, including this AVP project. AVP is chosen because it is more complicated in the whole scene. Compared with the roadside, it is more complicated. If AVP has a domain, a cloud, and edge computing, this is even more complicated.
Reporter: Will there be a corresponding timetable?
Xie Baojun: Yes, most of the demonstration projects we do are made with mass production plans. Specific to wait until * * * mass production time to release.
Reporter: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I want to ask here. Because we are talking more about 5G and its contribution to autonomous driving, we still have to pay attention to the establishment of standards and infrastructure. Now our situation is that the standards have not been fully established, and large-scale infrastructure may not have been established. So please analyze the progress of C-V2X in establishing related URLLC and MTC standards for 5G applications. And what is the planning and progress based on infrastructure that Unicom has learned?
Li Jun: That's right. Recently, we have been actively participating in cooperation in all directions, including the ICT Institute and various institutions under the Ministry of Communications, to jointly formulate standards. Of course, we also hope that Volvo can participate together to build an ecological destiny around 5G and autonomous driving and jointly formulate corresponding standards. It will involve all aspects, including car manufacturers, operators, service providers, positioning, parts and travel services. Such projects can be said to be in full swing. It is expected that there may be some phased results this year, and the standard is definitely the first.
Xie Baojun: This piece must be open and standardized.
Reporter: Listening to the two answers just now, both unmanned driving and V2X actually need a lot of data, or a lot of traffic participants. You can't do it without me. We both have to have it. We just need to do it together. In fact, I would like to ask, what are the specific cooperation directions between Volvo and the outside world? Can you tell me something? For example, similar to the cooperation with OEM, or component manufacturers, or even emerging IT companies, can you tell us about the cooperation?
Xie Baojun: Open cooperation is our most important principle, because to form a unified standard, autonomous driving can go on, form a scale, and finally achieve landing. We can refer to the announced partners, which are found in all walks of life, such as Huawei, China Unicom, Ali Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Gaode, Iflytek, etc. We have built a very long industrial chain through diversified cooperation, and we have cooperated with each other and promoted technological progress.
Reporter: Tell me about my understanding of Volvo's autonomous driving practice. Do you think this is true? Volvo 20 16 cooperated with Uber, and accumulated the development experience of self-driving basic models in advance, how to build basic models, and also accumulated the development experience of self-driving. Volvo also began to set up its own industrial resources, including NVIDIA and China Unicom, or cooperated with Luminar to develop the latest sensing technology, and set up a joint venture with Autoliv to develop autonomous driving software. Do an experiment through Uber in advance, and establish such a system and a mature solution later. So in the future, will Volvo be able to provide basic vehicles to third parties, or will it use autopilot to provide autopilot software services to other partners? Is this the right way?
Xie Baojun: The summarized information is very comprehensive. Thank you for your attention.
Reporter: What do you think is the intelligent computing ability of cars and bicycles? For example, camera+millimeter wave radar, will it require higher computing power?
Xie Baojun: Actually, today, our bottleneck is not in the field of computing. For example, like today's thinking, we have this computing platform, followed by effectiveness. Today, everyone has a headache. Computing power has gone up, and power consumption and heat dissipation have also gone up. This is a difficult problem to solve. Our cooperation with NVIDIA is to develop the advanced artificial intelligence CPU of the next generation Volvo cars.
Reporter: If the price of lidar comes down, will you also consider adding this configuration?
Xie Baojun: Judging from today's perception technology route, it is indeed a good technology choice to deploy more low-frequency radars, high-frequency radars and cameras. ?
Reporter: From the OEM's point of view, what kind of cost is basically acceptable for lidar to drop?
Xie Baojun: Generally speaking, the acceptable cost of a car factory must be within 1,000 yuan.
Reporter: L4 will enter private users, but the theoretical product of L4 should be that after liberating drivers, * * * enjoying travel should be its application scenario.
Xie Baojun: So we have the mobile travel brand M.
Reporter: Is it a brand that enjoys traveling?
Xie Baojun: Yes.
Reporter: Will M brand use L4 vehicles in the future?
Xie Baojun: The expansion of M brand into business is very dynamic.
Reporter: 2025 is the time for everyone to collectively rush to L4. Everyone will reach the same goal through different routes. Everyone's judgment is 2025. Will your understanding of L4 be basically the same, or will each family have its own strong points?
Xie Baojun: In terms of technical route, the difference will not be too big, but today's technical competition in the industry involves many aspects, such as the implementation method of an application scenario, the speed of iteration and so on. , and finally realize the user experience, which is what consumers can see. We hope that user scenarios will collude more naturally, and users can achieve whatever services they need, and this service will appear there well. Therefore, I think that we must pay attention to the user experience when doing autonomous driving.
Reporter: You mentioned the speed of iteration. If it is OTA speed, how fast do you think it will be?
Xie Baojun: We can take our products as an example. The whole iteration at the operating system level takes about 6 months. This iteration is at the code level. At the same time, this iteration is often the speed of releasing new software. To develop, there must be continuous integration and verification. This process takes about six months.
Reporter: Volvo has always emphasized mass production in autonomous driving. What is the core support behind Volvo's support for mass production?
Xie Baojun: I think as a vehicle manufacturer, the most important thing for Volvo Cars is its systematic integration of resources. The core of supporting us to do these things is our rich experience in automobile R&D and manufacturing, as well as rich technical accumulation in the field of automobile safety.
Reporter: 2020 is the first commercial year of 5G-V2X. More and more vehicles support V2X, and the country is also vigorously promoting infrastructure deployment. Can you make a prospect for the development of 5G-V2X in 2020, including the development path and standard formulation, and also talk about the challenges?
Li Jun: In the past, we have done some conceptual verification in various situations. In 2020, we will have some new breakthroughs in commercialization. This paper introduces the planning of intelligent network of China Unicom in 2020. Recently, from the strategic positioning of China Unicom Intelligent Network, the concept of China-Taiwan strategy was introduced.
This concept is divided into narrow sense and broad sense. In a narrow sense, in 2020, we will focus on building intermediate platforms for Wang Zhi's own enterprises, including some data intermediate platforms and technology intermediate platforms. On this basis, we will build a series of standardized products. Specifically, we plan to lay out the "5 Wisdom" products from the prefix "Wisdom", namely Zhiyue, Zhiyuan, Zhishu, Zhilian and Zhixin. For example, our intermediate platform is like our base, and the base is like an aircraft carrier. The five smart products on it are like fighters on the aircraft carrier. This is in a narrow sense.
In addition, when it comes to China-Taiwan strategy, there is a broad understanding. In fact, Wang Zhi was born out of China Unicom, and has the genes of operators, but it focuses on intelligent networking and intelligent transportation industry. We hope to give full play to the advantages of our operators and service operators and build them into intelligent networks and intelligent transportation industries. Because we have a wide range of contacts and do our own service operations, we are more suitable for being a middle-level platform in the industry.
Back to the question just now, we hope that the scale, commercialization and operation of 5G technology can be really started with the support of such an infrastructure by constructing the narrow-sense middle-platform and broad-sense middle-platform strategies just mentioned. Therefore, based on this, we will cooperate with Volvo Cars and other eco-partners to create "killer" applications this year.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.