Bitauto News? On December 22, Beixing’s new product and strategic launch conference with the theme of “512 Era: Coming for Cars” was held in Beijing. At the press conference, BeiWake CEO Li Yuan announced BeiWake's first 512-line automotive-grade lidar - AD2, marking that China's automotive lidar field has officially entered the industry-leading "512 era". As the industry's first 512-line The high-performance laser main radar AD2 will be mass-produced and delivered in 2023, mainly targeting three major groups: new car-making forces, traditional car manufacturers, and autonomous driving solution providers. At present, it has obtained orders for multiple models, with a total of 180,000 units, and has reached mass production cooperation with Jabil, the world's top electronics manufacturing service provider. At the same time, Li Yuan also announced that Beixing has established the 512 Ecological Alliance, which is dedicated to empowering car companies to achieve intelligent Overtaking on curves during driving.
The "512 Era" is committed to the transition and upgrade of lidar
According to a report by the French Yole consulting company, China's lidar supply market share accounts for 50% of the world's level. As the world's largest lidar application market and supply market, the biggest issue facing China's lidar industry is how to truly empower car companies and make the future driving experience safer, more comfortable and smarter.
Beijing CEO Li Yuan said that in order to solve this problem, the key point that cannot be avoided is safety. To be more precise, how to leave enough observation and response for intelligent driving users at the perceptual level. time.
The entry threshold for future-oriented smart vehicles requires higher safety standards. Li Yuan believes that the lidar industry must enter the "512 line" because "only through such high-performance products can we Empower car companies to achieve higher-level safety and intelligent driving." Li Yuan gave an example. When a vehicle is traveling at 100km/h, a 22cm small target (the height of a flat tire) appears in the center of the road. Under normal circumstances, the ultimate safe braking distance from detecting the target to stopping requires at least 70m. However, taking the current 128-line lidar product, its effective detection and recognition distance for small targets is only 31.5 meters under corresponding circumstances. On the contrary, if the vertical resolution of the lidar is increased to 0.05°, which is equivalent to 512 lines, the effective detection and recognition distance can be increased to 126 meters, gaining an additional safe distance for the car, which is equivalent to gaining an additional 2.1 for the intelligent driving system. Seconds to carry out system decision-making, planning and control. These critical 2.1 seconds are enough for humans to complete 3 to 4 operating actions. They can choose to slow down in advance and stop safely without taking extreme operations of emergency braking, or they can safely and smoothly switch to other lanes when there is an opportunity to avoid obstacles and continue. Driving to fundamentally avoid accidents.
The latest AD2 released by BeiWake achieves a breakthrough in core performance through revolutionary 512-line technology, turning this scenario into a reality. Through the powerful performance of 512 lines, AD2 achieves a longitudinal resolution of 0.05°, which means that AD2 can detect targets of similar size when lying flat on tires at a distance of 120 meters, or can accurately restore the outline of a person at a distance of 200 meters. Even gait; in addition, AD2 achieves global high-definition detection, that is, high resolution at all angles and areas within the entire 120° horizontal field of view, and the high resolution within the entire viewing angle is coherent and smooth, without overlap or interlacing , gaps and other phenomena, the lidar does not need to look left and right, and it is more convenient to detect targets in a wider range, providing double protection to reduce the occurrence of accidents.
Li Yuan said: "Our AD2 can increase the safe controllable distance of more than 70 meters and the controllable reaction time of more than 2.1 seconds for vehicle driving, making smart driving in the new era smarter and safer. Fewer accidents and a more comfortable driving experience.
”
2D scanning replaces 1D stacking: achieving decoupling of performance and cost
Li Yuan introduced at the press conference that the reason why the industry has not yet popularized 512-line technology is because of In addition to the reasons for business strategy and route layout, it is also related to the current high implementation threshold of this technology: "If the traditional mechanical lidar method is used to achieve a resolution of 512 lines: the light source and receiver need to be stacked vertically, and The relative position accuracy between the transceiver and receiver needs to be controlled below the micron level. It is difficult to break through the limitations of cost, volume, manufacturability, heat dissipation and many other aspects with the current technology and manufacturing level. If optical scanning is used instead of device stacking to achieve a resolution of 512 lines: to achieve a scanning accuracy of 0.05°, the angular accuracy of the optical scanning needs to be controlled within one ten thousandth, which requires the motor to rotate every second. Nearly a hundred turns, and at the same time, the deviation of each turn is less than one 120th of the rotation of the second hand. This is a very big technical challenge. ”
BeiWake stated that in order to achieve mature 512-level products, the company has made many innovations in optical design, scanning accuracy, signal processing, automated calibration and adjustment, etc., and has also overcome huge challenges.
By using semiconductor laser and sensor array transceiver technology, as well as its own patented innovative laser drive circuit and receiving signal processing circuit, the dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio of the signal are improved, coupled with an original high-precision control system and self-developed optical system, which not only supports flexible configuration of scanning modes and scanning trajectories, but can also be adapted to fully automatic assembly lines and ultimately achieve mass production.
Through self-developed dual-axis high-precision scanning technology and dual-axis scanning, it can also be adapted to fully automatic assembly lines. The motor control algorithm not only achieves high-precision scanning of 0.05°, but also successfully reduces the size of the motor control circuit by half through design iterations, saving 40% of the cost, fundamentally solving the contradiction between 512-line performance and cost, making commercial Mass production becomes possible. Li Yuan said that under the same parameter performance, dual-axis high-definition scanning technology can use fewer transceiver arrays to significantly reduce costs, and achieve decoupling of cost and performance to better implement follow-up. The performance upgrade takes into account the high standards of cost and performance required by car companies.
The 8-year road to incubating the 512 line
According to reports, Beiwake was able to complete the vehicle-mounted lidar. The huge breakthrough in the 512 era is inseparable from its deep cultivation in the lidar industry in the previous eight years. Prior to this, Beiwake had achieved the first market share in the field of transportation and industrial sensing, with a cumulative shipment of 1 million units of each model. Products are exported to more than 90 countries and regions. Beixing has devoted itself to the research and development of the first Horn series products with a distance of more than 300 meters, and has been successfully used in the field of rail transit. In the Three Gorges and Winter Olympics branch lines (Beijing Metro No. 11 BeiXing products are also present in scenes such as the Western Section of the Line), Capital Airport, and Beijing-Taiwan Expressway. Founded in 2015, BeiXing has made considerable commercial achievements in the lidar track. Since 2020, BeiXing has become profitable.
In the field of vehicle-mounted lidar, BeiWake has also been deploying it for many years. In 2018, it developed the Horn platform: using a unique transceiver module and dual-axis scanning system, it lights up the "high-definition long-range , rapid customization, dynamic adjustment” skills; today’s AD2 came into being based on the Ying platform, combining the advantages of previous technology platforms, continuing to make breakthroughs and innovations in performance, and will also be used in the Ying platform in the future. ) platform to create safer and more powerful sensing capabilities for car companies.
As of now, the number of lidar-related patents of BeiWake ranks among the top in the world, with 413 patent applications disclosed. 200 patents have been authorized. In addition, Beiwake has won national honors such as "National Intellectual Property Advantage Enterprise" and National Specialized and New "Little Giant" Enterprise.
At the press conference, Beiwake also announced. According to the latest Series C financing results, Taihe Capital serves as the exclusive financial advisor for investments from a new domestic car-making force, FAW Fusheng, Shunwei Capital, CCB, China Electronics Technology, Jiangmen, Guohai Innovation, Fenfen and Tianqi.
A review of Beixing's past financing shows that there are many investors with car company backgrounds such as FAW Fusheng, which represents the capital market's optimism about Beixing's prospects.
The 512 era has come, and BeiXing helps car companies achieve cornering overtaking in the era of intelligent driving
Finally, Li Yuan solemnly stated that car-grade 512-line lidar is not a prospect, but a reality , the future upgrade of intelligent driving from L2 to L3 and L4 will rely more on the support of high-performance hardware. BeiWake will help car companies use next-generation high-performance lidar 18 months in advance, greatly improving upgrade efficiency. "The 512 era will bring about a qualitative improvement in driving safety, and the accident rate will be greatly reduced, truly allowing everyone to obtain safe intelligent driving capabilities."
Beixing also announced its future strategic plan for car companies. In the next two years, Beiwake hopes to fully empower major car companies based on its accumulation of lidar technology and product capabilities, and work with car manufacturers to achieve breakthroughs and leaps in intelligent driving capabilities. Specifically, in terms of software, Beiwake will further optimize the basic processing and algorithms of point cloud, and transfer the software development at the functional layer to customers; it will launch the 512 Ecological Alliance for partners such as large computing power chips, solution companies, and car manufacturers. , together with Chinese car companies, take the opportunity of vehicle-mounted lidar in the 512 era to provide support for the automotive industry's corner overtaking in the era of intelligent driving.
Li Yuan finally said: "BeiWake's original intention and ideal of developing lidar is to improve the control of time in the micro world through lidar, thereby improving the car's ability to perceive the environment and increasing the transportation capacity of the macro world. "Facing the future wave of intelligent driving changes, 512-line products are a node, not the end point. Beiwake will firmly invest in technology to help intelligent driving vehicles cope with more complex road conditions and achieve higher speeds, so as to bring people a safer and better travel experience.