Chongqing- The automobile industry has ushered in a century of changes, from traditional machinery to intelligent manufacturing. "We are bound to see changes with emerging intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs)," said Dr. Du Xiaoping, cloud monitoring expert of the Western China Science City Innovation Center of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (WICV), during an exclusive interview with iChongqing on September 20.

Focusing on key components and technologies, cloud control applications, big data ICV evaluation, and other areas, the WICV actively cultivates the upstream and downstream enterprises to build an ICV demonstration area worth over 10 billion dollars.

Integration of car, road, and cloud

According to Dr. Du Xiaoping, a cloud monitoring expert of the WICV, in the vehicle sector, China followed developed countries in the early stage, but now it can be said China has reached the same levels or even leads the world standard in some aspects.

For example, China combines some of its industrial and technological edges to propose a new automotive development model, the Chinese solution for intelligent connected vehicles. 

"The solution's essence is the integration of car, road, and cloud, which means to combine smart vehicles, intelligent roads, and strong cloud computing abilities to guarantee driving security and build a foundation for efficiency improvement," he said. 

Du continued that in situations where safety behavior is not perceived, the cloud and roadside sensing can be used to anticipate safety risks for the vehicles in advance to avoid further safety problems. Another case could be, through the cloud-based on dynamic traffic data, the system integrating car, road, and cloud can provide suggestions for the driving vehicles to follow a smooth flow of traffic. 

Meanwhile, Du mentioned Li Keqiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who was the first to propose the Chinese solution. Thanks to the Li Keqiang Workstation, which the WICV listed, an innovative team of academicians, industry experts, and entrepreneurs with cutting-edge technical capabilities and application experience came into being. 

Chongqing has over 95% ICV  scenarios

The introduction of the Li Keqiang Workstation is a good facilitator for Chongqing to build a new card for China's ICV sector, and the reason why the workstation settled in Chongqing is linked with the city's great potential and advantages. 

Chongqing's geographical location is one indispensable element. "In addition to the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, Chongqing boasts industrial edges in manufacturing represented by both traditional and new energy vehicles companies," Du said. 

With an area of more than 80,000 square kilometers, nearly 4,000 kilometers of highways, and 160,000 kilometers of roads at all levels, Chongqing enjoys access to more than 95% of scenarios in the ICV industry with the unique complexity of the road network system in the world. 

The vast and complex traffic scenarios require a coordinated operating system of people, vehicles, roads, and clouds to provide a powerful and intelligent data engine. Thus, the issues like bridges and tunnels are the key technical difficulties that need to be investigated and attacked by the industry, said Du. 

As a specialist in cloud monitoring, Du pointed to the cloud control infrastructure platform as a core of the whole vehicle transportation system.

For ICVs, the cloud control infrastructure platform can provide low latency services to enhance safety, improve efficiency, and save energy. In contrast, traffic management departments can improve regional and traffic situational awareness, strengthen traffic guidance and control, and reduce traffic accidents. 

Currently, WICV is working on research and development (R&D) in related operation systems, information security, chip manufacturing, and other areas with professional talents and partners to realize citywide traffic data information sharing. 

"With the economic advances, China has made a strong transportation system as the national development strategy, while Chongqing has developed a plan to build world-class industrial cluster for intelligent connected vehicles and new energy vehicles," he added. 

According to the plan, Chongqing's ICV and NEV output will account for more than 10% of China's production in three years. Chongqing expects to nurture one or two globally renowned intelligent connected vehicles and new energy vehicle brands by 2030. 

In the future, Du believed that Chongqing would take more steps to boost the industry, from talent and enterprise introduction to investment attraction, aiming to build the country's demonstration base for ICVs.