Chinese Tech Giant Successfully Completes Autonomous Driving Test

The “Chinese Google” appears to be following in its autonomous footsteps.

China’s largest search engine, Baidu, has announced that a modified BMW 3 Series has successfully completed an autonomous test route in Beijing, with the company stating this is the first fully autonomous car in China to successfully pass a series of tests in a variety of driving environments.

The 18.6 mile test route started and ended at Baidu’s Beijing headquarters, and required a variety of maneuvers that included merging onto the highway, decelerating for slower traffic, changing lanes and U-Turns. The company explained the maximum speed during the test was 62 miles-per-hour.

The company’s Institute of Deep Learning initiated its self-driving car project in 2013, utilizing Baidu’s highly automated driving (HAD) maps. With this technology, Baidu plans to map out many of China’s roadways through repetition. For example, the company explains that a bus equipped with mapping hardware would develop a very thorough map for its specific route. Additionally, it already offers an extensive mapping service, Baidu Maps, which puts it at an advantage when it comes to autonomous car development.

There’s no question highly detailed maps are one of the essential components required for developing self-driving cars, which is why Tesla, a consortium of German automakers, Uber and other companies are all developing their own maps. Baidu has stated that it will be able to map out the majority of China’s roads within 10 years.

In June, the company announced its plans to put an autonomous car on the road by the end of 2015, in partnership with BMW. Although Baidu did achieve its initial goal, this short test run is far from mass production of autonomous vehicles. At the same time, driverless car technology is quickly advancing, and Baidu is certainly focused on trying to be one of the first companies to get them on public roads.

Wang Jing, a Baidu senior vice president, explains that its two prototype BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo autonomous cars use Lidar and other sensors to see their surroundings, with highly detailed prior maps and deep learning software being utilized to make sense of the data and control the car’s motion. According to Jing, the long-term goal is to develop the autonomous vehicles for use as public shuttles, although the details of how this will work have not yet been revealed.

“We will cooperate with some governments to provide shared vehicles like a shuttle service; it could be a car or van, but for public use,” explained Jing.

Seemingly following a similar path to Google in self-driving car development, will Baidu become the first to bring autonomous cars to roads in China and/or the U.S.? Both companies have a long way to go before they can offer commercially-available driverless cars, but the race is clearly on.