Looking at the future of self-driving cars from the development of 5G mobile phones

When will self-driving cars be launched? To be precise, it has been implemented in many places now, but how far is it from ordinary users?

The dream of self-driving cars may start with Transformers. Cars, computers, and robots have reminded Americans of a new species called Transformers. There have been thousands of episodes of Transformers, but self-driving cars have only just begun to walk in a few specific parks around the world, and they are still far from being human companions that can talk and do things.

​As for the future of autonomous driving, we might as well get a glimpse of it from the development of 5G mobile phones.

The first is the popularization of 5G networks

Mobile communication networks have been popular for decades. The era when you need to shout loudly to make a call is over. Why is a 5G network necessary, and is it a 5G independent network? Because the mobile phone does not have a 5G network, the Internet access is slow and there is no signal at most. Just wait and it will be fine. Without a 5G network, self-driving cars are like blind people walking in the dark, and the risk factor is greatly increased. Even if a self-driving car has a very advanced brain, map and real-time laser sensing capabilities, it will be difficult to pass the safety threshold for official use on the road.

At present, our country has built and put into use 1.7 million 5G base stations, with more than 12 5G base stations per 10,000 people. For self-driving cars to travel unimpeded, they also need a number of 5G base stations per square kilometer, at least in the designated "autonomous driving area." Therefore, if self-driving cars want to travel along major traffic roads and urban built-up areas, they must wait for the density of 5G base stations to reach standards.

Now, pilot demonstration zones for intelligent connected vehicles have sprouted up everywhere. These open test roads not only have full 5G signal coverage, but also have infrastructure such as V2X vehicle-road collaborative application systems, holographic road perception systems, safety supervision and monitoring platforms, and roadside intelligent terminals.

This is the same as 5G mobile phones. If the network is not perfect, there will be no terminal sales. Therefore, where there are many 5G base stations, 5G mobile phones are becoming more popular. Where there are few 5G base stations, users have to sit back and watch.

The second is the degree of intelligence of the terminal

5G smartphone, to put it bluntly, is a miniaturized computer, as long as the processor performance is higher , the screen is better, the memory is larger, and the sensors are more, it can be said to be very smart. But automobiles, which are the culmination of industrial manufacturing, are not that simple. The first is the processor. Whether it is a desktop processor or a mobile processor, it cannot be copied to the car. Each company needs to develop its own customized chips. Secondly, there are sensors. Sensors that are insignificant on a mobile phone are life-threatening if they are put in a car. The road conditions are so complex, and whether they can be accurately identified is a great test of the performance of self-driving cars. A certain brain currently on the market claims to include AI core technologies and AI open platforms such as vision, speech, natural language processing, knowledge graphs, and deep learning. This is also logical. The brain of autonomous driving must not be specially built for autonomous driving - then the amount of data will be a bit small - but should be closer to Transformers, integrating the brain of the whole society, or even all human civilization.

Perhaps it can be said: A robot that cannot transform and chat is not a good self-driving car.

The third is the manufacturing process of self-driving cars

Today’s self-driving cars are often operated by Internet technology companies, while traditional Many car manufacturers are still working on their traditional assembly lines because they don't believe that self-driving cars can change things overnight. Recently, it has been reported that the air suspension of the Lili L9 test car broke. I hope car enthusiasts will not be too surprised, because the air suspension itself is a very delicate thing, and it is operated by a new company, so it will inevitably have some twists and turns. I believe that with the upgrade of relevant warranty plans, hidden dangers will be controlled.

In addition to suspension, there are also aspects such as body, power system, and battery that need to be further matured. Self-driving cars are relatively advanced and generally use all-aluminum bodies. In terms of battery, it also needs to have a driving range of 500-1,000 kilometers.

The fourth is to establish a unified charging and swapping system

When will the charging and swapping system become as popular as gas stations? And another prerequisite: when can various manufacturers unify battery standards in order to establish a universal charging and swapping system. After all, it is extremely unrealistic for each manufacturer to establish a separate charging and swapping system, just like a fuel vehicle manufacturer establishing its own gas station, and just like a 5G mobile phone manufacturer establishing its own communication network.

There is a long way to go! It took more than 30 years for the gas station system to be built, and 5G network is in the ascendant. I predict that autonomous vehicles will not be initially popular until at least 2030, and may be on par with traditional cars by 2050!

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