Baidu has started volume production of Apolong, China’s first L4 fully autonomous bus. Apolong, developed in partnership with Chinese bus manufacturer King Long and powered by Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving open platform, will be put into commercial operation in several Chinese cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Xiongan, Wuhan and Pingtan of Fujian province, and has set its sights on overseas markets. Baidu has also announced the latest upgrade to Apollo, Apollo 3.0, to support autonomous driving in geo-fenced areas. Apollo 3.0 includes new tools supporting valet parking, autonomous mini buses and autonomous microcars.

The production volume of Apolong has reached 100 units at its manufacturing facility in Xiamen, in southeastern China’s Fujian province. Baidu’s Chairman and CEO Robin Li introduced the milestone as he livestreamed an inside look at the autonomous mini bus production line to more than 6,000 attendees at Baidu Create 2018 in Beijing.

Making its debut at the Baidu World conference in Beijing in November, Apolong, which holds 14 people, is also ready to take to the roads in overseas markets, targeting Japan as its first destination.

Apolong, carrying Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving system, can complete self-driving operations such as obstacle avoidance, swerve and automatic transshipment. Apolong will initially be put to use in last-mile travel scenarios in tourist spots, airports and other enclosed areas.

Baidu also showcased a voice-activated AI telematics OS, a service designed to enhance the in-car experience by enabling human-vehicle interaction. Leveraging DuerOS, Baidu’s conversational AI system, the system’s capabilities include human-vehicle conversation, facial recognition entry, driver fatigue monitoring, AR navigation, intelligent security, vehicle-to-home (V2H) connection and personalized services and content such as providing recommendations and ordering food by voice command.

Apollo has now brought together 116 partners on the open platform. It laid out plans to achieve volume production of L3 autonomous vehicles by 2020. According to Baidu, the platform has amassed more than 220,000 lines of code with over 10,000 developers recommending Apollo open source software.

source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/baidu-starts-volume-production-of-apolong-fully-autonomous-bus--1251248