Wuhan development zone advances automatic driving

The Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone -- also known as the WHDZ -- is taking great strides in promoting automatic driving with the very first commercial self-driving vehicle license issued recently, marking the commercialization of automatic driving, according to the Changjiang Daily.

Officials said the new license was also the first of its kind in China.

As discussed at the second Global Intelligent Vehicle Summit -- held in Wuhan in central Hubei province on Sept 21 – China must have its own automatic driving solution to develop intelligent networked vehicles.

The international model for automatic driving represented by Tesla relies on the vehicle's own powerful detection and computing capabilities -- while by contrast Wuhan is constructing a smart transportation system consisting of 5G communications, Beidou high-precision positioning, V2X technology and smart new energy.

The most conspicuous difference is the application of 5G technology, experts said.

The 5G+Beidou high-precision positioning system is provided by the team of the Academician Liu Jingnan of Wuhan University.

It provides all-weather, all-day, high-precision positioning, navigation and timing services, which can act within a millisecond and has centimeter-level positioning. Additionally, through the cellular communications method, dispatched by a unified data center, a real “traffic brain” can be developed.

At the same time, V2X car networking can realize the exchange of information between car and outside world, including the recognition of high-speed moving targets and fast two-way communications between cars and vehicles.

Officials said the WHDZs’ is the first car network developed in China that is based on a large-scale commercial 5G network. It can realize remote driving and road coordination through 5G applications.