Credit: AFP
China-based drone maker Da-Jiang Innovations Science and Technology (DJI) has developed Level 4 autonomous driving technology, which will be initially used in KiWi EV, an electric vehicle (EV) model already launched by joint-venture automaker SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile, according to industry sources.
DJI and SAIC-GM-Wuling have been in cooperation to develop autonomous driving technology since 2019 and jointly invested a few billion Chinese Yuan in such R&D, the sources said.
Under the cooperation, DJI has set up an R&D team of more than 4,000 people and an open trial road for testing autonomous driving, car-use 5G communication, remote driving and V2X (vehicle to everything), the sources noted. Road tests of autonomous driving technology have been undertaken cumulatively for over one million kilometers in distance.
In addition, DJI has set up its own team of about 1,000 staff members specifically for R&D of smart driving systems and core components thereof as well as production and marketing of these products, the sources indicated.
DJI aims to become a first-tier provider of hardware/software-integrated autonomous driving solutions through solving problems concerning sensors, algorithms, computing capability and data collection, the sources said.
Besides, Livox Technology, DJI's subsidiary developer of LiDARs founded in 2016, has cooperated with China-based EV vendor Xpeng Motors and China-based developers of autonomous driving technology including Suzhou Zhito Technology, Baidu Apollo, PlusAI, TuSimple for developing LiDARs to autonomous vehicles, the sources noted.