The last 100 meters of ＂parking freedom＂ come true？

　　In the commercial underground parking lot, a driver-less car automatically drives and avoids according to the route planned by the system, and finally automatically parks in an empty parking space … Since the end of November, a video about Huawei’s "unmanned parking service" has been frequently exposed on various social platforms. Three days later, Ideality also issued a similar video of "No Man in parking service" to follow suit. With the help of the two companies, "unmanned parking service" has become one of the hot traffic topics in the automobile industry recently. The unmanned parking technology presented in the video has also made many people exclaim: this has enabled people to achieve "parking freedom"! However, some calm insiders pointed out that this is not a smart technology that "turned out to be born", which has existed before.

　　Undoubtedly, behind the hot search on "Unmanned parking service" is that people’s awareness and interest in autonomous driving technology has been continuously improved this year. The application scenario of human driverless technology is accelerating from solving the "last mile" to solving the "last 100 meters".

　　Text, map/Guangzhou Daily All-Media Reporter Deng Li

　　Video/Guangzhou Daily All-Media Reporter Chen Xin and Deng Li

　　Demonstration scene　　

　　"The last 100 meters" to achieve "parking freedom"?

　　The reporter saw from several videos of "Unmanned parking service" that caused a heated discussion that the driving logic of the model equipped with Huawei’s "Unmanned parking service" technology has been very consistent with human beings in the operation of automatic parking in the underground parking lot of shopping malls. Such as slowing down/stopping to avoid pedestrians, turning lights, reversing to give way when passing, etc. The most surprising thing is that it can "understand" the parking command gesture of the mall security guard. After the full-automatic "unmanned parking service" technology demonstration, Huawei also demonstrated a smooth "unmanned call to pick up the driver" function. Similarly, the demonstration scene of LI’s "unmanned parking service" video is also very "perfect". Even if the driver gets off at the entrance of the parking lot, the vehicle can automatically pass through the gate, get into the underground garage, avoid pedestrians and meet cars, and even enter the next floor for parking through the passage. All users need to do is give instructions on their mobile phones. Such a "perfect" parking state can be described as a pain point for many people’s daily use of cars.

　　Industry analysis

　　In fact, it is an advanced version of "memory parking"

　　Netizens with "sharp eyes" found that in the above video, vehicles always "find" a parking space after crossing a lot of vacancies, which has a "preset" feeling. In this regard, many insiders pointed out that the "unmanned parking service" function presented by Huawei and Ideal is also a fixed parking space with good parking training and memory.

　　"Similar’ unmanned parking service’ function is nothing new. As early as 2019, some car companies released AVP automatic parking service technology, but due to various factors, it has not achieved a very good application. " Li Qiang, an R&D engineer of a domestic autonomous driving company, told the reporter that Bosch and Daimler had tried the automatic parking service technology based on L4-class autonomous driving in a specific parking lot in Baden-Wü rttemberg, Germany four years ago; In 2021, AVP was also in full swing. For example, Weimar Automobile, which developed well at that time, and Yihang Intelligent jointly launched the parking service function, which can also realize cross-floor parking/memory parking in parking lots.

　　"From the technical difficulty point of view, thanks to the stronger perception system and computing power data, Huawei’s automatic screening, avoidance and handling response will be more sensitive now, which really improves the success rate and efficiency of parking." Li Qiang pointed out that similar videos can inspire people to have a better vision for the future of unmanned driving, but it doesn’t mean that now’ unmanned parking service’ has solved all technical problems and has a mature application prospect. "In fact,’ no one parking service’ is still far from achieving a qualitative leap."

　　Landing prospect

　　Wide application is not yet available.

　　From the perspective of the autonomous driving industry, autonomous parking is a low-speed complex scene of the "last 100 meters" of autonomous driving, which not only helps to accumulate rich training data, but also contributes to the technical iterative evolution of intelligent networked vehicles. However, we will notice that the implementation strategies of demonstration vehicles are relatively stable and not radical, whether it is Huawei or Ideal’s "Unmanned parking service" video. For example, when encountering pedestrians and passing cars, it is mainly to avoid; When choosing a parking space, you will also choose a parking space that is less difficult to park, so as to avoid vehicle rubbing. "Production cars equipped with this technology will appear in parking lots all over the country. It can be said that the environment they face is also diverse. In what scenario, you need to ask a question mark. The goal of’ unmanned parking service’ is to solve the’ efficiency’ of parking, but whether it will become a problem that hinders the rapid circulation of parking lots now is a question mark. " In the eyes of autonomous driving R&D personnel, there are many preconditions and hardware requirements to truly realize the landing of this function smoothly.

　　In fact, the concept of parking service was put forward long ago, but the consideration of risk and safety also discouraged many manufacturers. Yu Chengdong, CEO of BU, Huawei’s smart car solution, also admitted at the press conference that unmanned parking service is not suitable for all parking garages at present, not only because it requires high network signals, but also needs to connect with parking lot maps and cloud data.

　　There are many constraints from objective environment.

　　In fact, the garage environment is more complicated than the ground road environment, which is not only narrow, but also has a large curvature underground passage, and there are no clear traffic rules, pedestrians and vehicles come and go at will, and there are many blind spots. In addition, the management system of the parking lot is not perfect. The landing of unmanned parking service must be supported by high-precision map information of the parking lot, which includes detailed information such as parking lot structure, parking space position, lane direction, obstacle distribution and so on. At the same time, most underground parking lots have weak network signals, which is a great challenge to the positioning system that widely uses RTK. Coupled with the stability of vehicle signal coverage, these are key issues to ensure efficient data processing and information fusion. But to solve these problems, the cost is very high.

　　The hardware and software requirements are high.

　　Compared with the objective environment, the software and hardware test the technical ability of each enterprise and the hardware investment of its products. If you need multi-dimensional sensors such as laser radar, millimeter wave radar, ultrasonic radar and camera. Especially in the pure vision scheme, the vehicle’s environmental perception and independent decision-making ability are tested. At the same time, wireless communication technologies such as 5G and V2X should also be involved, so that vehicles can continuously exchange data with mobile phones, clouds and base stations, and combine algorithms in real time to ensure the smooth progress of unmanned parking service.

　　There are gaps in policies and regulations

　　Aside from technical problems, the commercial dilemma of high-order autonomous driving, in addition to technical problems, is more complicated in laws and regulations and the division of power and responsibility for accidents. When using the "Unmanned parking service" function, in case of traffic accident, which leads to pedestrian injury or other property losses, this responsibility division problem needs perfect legal support. At present, there are no relevant general laws and regulations in China.

　　The reporter noted that in mid-November, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicles Access and Road Access" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), clarifying that vehicles with L3 and L4 self-driving functions selected by the four ministries and commissions with mass production conditions can be piloted in a limited area. The industry pointed out that although it is only a pilot document to limit areas and products, it is still in the early stage of exploration of new technologies, and the Notice still has reference value for the actual landing of autonomous driving.

　　reporters’ notes

　　It is expected to open a new intelligent blue ocean.

　　For the landing time of autonomous driving, car companies and autonomous driving companies have differences. For example, He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, thinks that Xpeng Motors will enter the era of real autonomous driving in 2025, but Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon, thinks that L3-level autonomous driving will not really be realized within ten years.

　　Under the sharp contrast between optimism and pessimism, the industry still reached a consensus: before completing the closed loop of intelligent assisted driving, the autonomous driving technology route needs to solve three major scenarios, namely, cities, high-speed structured roads and autonomous parking. Therefore, we can see that Huawei and Ideality, whose main brand is intelligent technology, will focus on "Unmanned parking service" after the NOA of this year’s burning cities and highways. However, it is just a repackaging of the upgraded memory parking. Although it still cannot conceal the difficulty in landing application behind it, it still releases the signal of autonomous driving technology and its technical iteration to the industry. Moreover, with the participation of more players and the improvement of laws and regulations in the future, "Unmanned parking service" is expected to open a new blue ocean of intelligent technology.

　　Noun interpretation

　　The full name of AVP is automated valet parking, automatic parking service. That is, the driver needs to manually drive the car into the basement first, complete the first parking, and let the system remember the driving track and parking space. The next time, the car will drive to the designated parking space through automatic driving and stop in; When the owner needs to drive away, the car automatically returns to the owner’s location. Simply put, its operation mode can be compared with sweeping robot to some extent.