By Keqiao Cheng, EDITOR

When sitting in a self-driving car, you don’t have to hold the steering wheel nor step on the accelerator and brakes. The car will stop at the red light to avoid vehicles and pedestrians automatically. You can even chat with the car.

All this might sounds amazing, but these functions have already been actualized in smart cars. How can we ensure they are safe enough or as smart as we want? The Intelligent Vehicles Integrated Test Area (hereinafter i-VISTA) in Chongqing will test the IQ of smart vehicles.

i-VISTA is a globe-leading public service platform for intelligent vehicles and smart traffic applications. It is conducted by China Automotive Engineering Research Institute (CAERI), which is based in Chongqing, together with universities and leading enterprises in smart vehicles in China.

50 Traffic Test Scenarios

VISTA currently has 50 test scenarios including road traffic scenarios, efficiency scenarios, information service scenarios, and communication and positioning capability test scenarios. For example, forward collision warning, dead zone warning, lane changing assistance, overtaking assistance, automatic braking, intersection collision warning, emergency braking warning, and tunnel driving, etc.

All-Round Test Area Covers 85% of the Road Environment

Compared with other test areas, the i-VISTA has created a unique traffic system since it is located in Chongqing, a Chinese city famous for its special traffic system due to the special landform there.

The landform in Chongqing covers more than 85% of the world's traffic scenes and environments. In addition to high-speed loops, long tunnels, ramps, bends, bridges, avenues, there are also unique resources such as “3D City” and “5D Interchanges”, as named by Chinese netizens.

To call it “3D City” is because the whole city of Chongqing is built on mountains and the road network is in multiple layers. “5D Interchanges” refers to the complicated interchanges in Chongqing, perhaps the most complicated across China. Thus, this city is the perfect choice for “all-around test area” for intelligent vehicles. If the self-driving technology is successfully tested in Chongqing, the expectation of the application of self-driving car in other cities will be highly positive.

On April 18^th, 8 Chinese leading companies in this field, including Chang’an Automobile, Geely Automobile, and Baidu, obtained the road test license for self-driving cars.

On June 28^th, CAERI released the first smart car index evaluation results on Volkswagen Tiguan L, Wey VV5, and Changan CS75 in Chongqing. The second and third vehicle evaluation results will be released in August and November.

 

Source: CQCB and CCRIA