China has allowed robo mobile testing across the country



    Despite recent accidents involving Rober-mobiles Uber and Tesla, testing of such systems continues. Yes, of course, autonomous cars are not yet ready for widespread use, but at the same time they are reliable enough to be tested on public roads. Even accidents can not be a reason for banning cars with autonomous control systems everywhere and everywhere. Accidents happen to ordinary cars, but everyone is accustomed to such accidents. But robomobili attract everyone's attention, so the accident with their participation are discussed everywhere.

    Realizing that sooner or later autonomous cars still massively take to the roads, the Chinese government allowedthe use of such vehicles in all settlements of his vast country. True, city leaders have a choice - the head of any locality can allow or prohibit robomobils. Previously, only a small number of cities, including Beijing, were eligible for testing.

    True, the Chinese are not going to release any autopilot cars on their roads. Companies that are planning to conduct tests "in the field" in the portfolio should have successful tests on closed roads and other locations. In addition, the driver who will be in the cabin must have at least three years of service, plus the person must be present at the driver’s seat at any time during the tests.

    Now the government of the country is trying to exert maximum efforts in order to accelerate the development of "smart vehicles". Under the new rules, the Chinese consider those systems to be partly or fully autonomous. The authorities are actively working to achieve the previously set plans: to make half of the cars produced by 2020 "smart."

    Regulator support gives developers tremendous competitive advantages. The fact is that testing in the field allows companies to gather as much information as possible to improve the performance of autonomous systems. Doing the same on closed roads will not work because of the lack of analogues of the active traffic that many people in big cities are used to.

    Various companies all over the world carry out tests with varying success. Someone gets better, someone gets worse. One of the best results shows the company Waymo, one of the divisions of Google Inc. It is possible that Chinese companies, after the start of support from regulators, will introduce robomobils made or close to them. Not so long ago, a number of small and sufficiently large companies received permits for the first time to test their robots on city roads.



    Baidu company is going to launch tests of its robomobiles running Apollo on 33 roads. The telecommunications giant hopes that it will be possible to launch the first autonomous machines with Apollo on board as early as 2019. In addition, SAIC Motor Corp. is testing robots. The startup Pony.ai, which is starting to check its robobomili in southern China, is not far behind.

    In the US, robo-mobile tests are very active. Thus, a division of Google Inc., the company Waymo filed an application for testing their own unmanned cars. And the difference between Waymo systems is the lack of drivers in the cabin. In California, besides Waymo, another company submitted an application for testing its cars, but unfortunately this company is unknown.

    In California, robotic vehicles are tested on public roads for a long time. Here, the interests of car developers with AI correspond to everything - the legal side of things, and weather conditions, and high-quality roads.

    Previously, the regulator was not going to give permission for testing without a driver. But in early 2018, this rule was changed. Waymo initially will check the work of the “UAVs” near its headquarters, and then, in the case of successful tests, cars without drivers in the cabin will go further along the bay.

    However, even in the case of fully autonomous ro-mobiles, a remote operator will observe their work, who, if necessary, will take action and will not allow the incident. And if the driver, who is inside the cabin, can work only with his car, that the remote operator can monitor and correct the work of several cars at once.

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