Autonomous driving is about to enter the L3 and L4 era, how to further improve the safety performance of vehicles?
A few days ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued a document to officially set specific requirements for the access specifications of L3 L4 autonomous driving and improve the relevant rules, which also means that L3 L4 autonomous driving is about to land.
At present, the thinking on autonomous driving safety in the industry mainly focuses on the perception of front-end sensors and the decision-making of back-end computing power, of which front-end sensors are mainly focused on the performance of lidar and cameras.
However, in addition to the performance of the sensor itself, lidar and cameras also have a disadvantage that cannot be ignored - they are easily affected by the external environment such as mud, sand, rain and snow, which leads to the degradation or even failure of the sensor.
In response to this problem, some players in the industry have proposed intelligent driving sensor cleaning system solutions, Kautex is a typical representative, in order to ensure the availability of autonomous driving sensors in all weather and all scenes, Kautex has developed the Allegro automatic driving visual cleaning system.
Kautex (Shanghai) Plastic Technology *** Kauteis).
The allegro intelligent driving cleaning system developed by Kautex mainly includes two aspects, on the one hand, it is a variety of nozzles such as static cleaning nozzles and telescopic cleaning nozzles visible to the naked eye, special cleaning water pumps for automatic driving, uninterrupted liquid level sensors, diverter valves and other hardware equipment;On the other hand, it is the invisible automatic driving cleaning intelligent control communication unit, which is used to control the efficient cleaning of the camera, radar, sensor, etc. of the automatic driving information collection unit in different weather and different vehicle movement conditions.
Allegro Intelligent Driving Cleaning System (**Kautex).
Intelligently adjust cleaning parameters to create a full-scene intelligent cleaning solution
The biggest advantage of the Allegro intelligent driving cleaning system is that it can intelligently control the cleaning strategy, set the corresponding cleaning parameters for different scenarios, flexibly handle various complex scenarios, and improve the cleaning performance.
In fact, most sensor cleaning systems in the industry can meet the cleaning needs of vehicles in a stationary state, and the real difficulty is efficient cleaning in high-speed scenarios. The cleaning cycle of the general sensor cleaning system at a speed of 120 km/h will be more than twice that of the stationary state, which is also a problem faced by the ordinary sensor cleaning system.
Intelligent Driving Cleaning System (**Kautex).
However, the automatic driving cleaning intelligent control communication unit in the Allegro intelligent driving cleaning system can convert the information of various weather conditions, dirty conditions, and vehicle movement states into the automatic driving intelligent control communication unit to control the cleaning strategy of the cleaning system, so that the cleaning cycle in high-speed scenarios is basically consistent with the static.
Software and hardware synergy road condition data is the key
In addition to the intelligent setting of cleaning parameters, the Allegro intelligent control module supports the prioritization of cleaning requests, parallel cleaning coordination, actuator control, and diagnostics.
Intelligent control of cleaning strategy (**Kautex).
Taking the priority of the cleaning request as an example, when the rear window glass and the roof radar send a cleaning request at the same time during the driving process, the Allegro intelligent control module can make a more human-like judgment, that is, the roof radar is cleaned first, which can also better ensure the safety of the vehicle during driving.
In addition, the Allegro intelligent driving cleaning system has also put a lot of effort into the hardware.
Generally speaking, the position and pressure of the nozzle will affect the cleaning effect, especially in different vehicle driving conditions, the nozzle pressure has a greater effect. With the nozzle position unchanged, the pressure of the Allegro nozzle can be recalibrated according to the vehicle speed, and the sensor can be cleaned effectively.
It should be pointed out that as one of the earliest manufacturers of autonomous driving sensor cleaning systems, Kaotex has also faced many problems in the development of intelligent driving cleaning systems, especially in the early research and development, it is basically difficult to find successful cases in the market that can be used for reference. For example, the parameters of the cleaning system vary greatly under different ambient temperatures, sensor installation positions, and driving speeds, so it is difficult to design a system that is suitable for various road conditions and efficient.
To this end, Kautex has developed the Allegrotm dynamic environment simulation platform to study the best cleaning parameters and strategies, which can restore the actual operating conditions of the vehicle to the greatest extent, by simulating the installation position of the vehicle sensor and cleaning actuator, to maximize the restoration of the influence of the surrounding environment of the sensor on the parameter setting, observe and record the setting of various cleaning parameters over time, including pressure, temperature, flow, etc., and then enrich the configuration of various cleaning methods.
Under repeated simulation tests, the cleaning parameters corresponding to various working conditions are summarized, sorted out and optimized into data strategies for the Allegro intelligent control module to be used in the autonomous driving operation process.
The layout has been designated by many car companies for more than 50 years
As a world-renowned auto parts manufacturer, Kautex has a footprint in 13 countries, with more than 30 production bases in Europe, the Americas and Asia, and its innovative technology is a complete set of cleaning systems, including water and air cleaning systems for windwindows, headlights, and sensors such as radars and cameras for autonomous driving.
In 1969, Kautex Vision Cleaning Systems established a factory in the United Kingdom, and from 1970 onwards, it began to supply the global market with the first vision cleaning system.
In the 90s of the 20th century, with the introduction of xenon lamps, Kautex developed a headlamp cleaning system, and in the past ten years, with the continuous development of automotive intelligence, Kautex has also been committed to the development of intelligent driving sensor cleaning systems.
In 2022, Kautes' intelligent driving cleaning solution Allegro won the 2022 Automotive Innovation Award jointly presented by the German Society and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Kautex has established a long-term and trustworthy relationship with customers, providing high-quality services to Chinese domestic brand car manufacturers, as well as Japanese and European car manufacturers, and can provide full-level autonomous driving cleaning solutions from L1 to L5.
It is understood that Kautex is currently developing L4 level automatic driving cleaning solutions with some well-known car companies, providing more than 20 cleaning points for the whole vehicle, including a complete cleaning system of water washing and air washing, and has obtained a number of project designations.