Hamburg (Germany) / Baoding (China), 27th August 2019 – China’s largest SUV and pickup truck manufacturer Great Wall Motor Company nominates Hamburg-based automotive supplier Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH as LiDAR supplier for its production vehicles. To ensure the validity and liability of the LiDAR, Beijing LiangDao Intelligent Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. will provide automatic testing & validation service for the cooperation. Kai Zhang, Deputy General Manger Great Wall, Ibeo CEO Dr. Ulrich Lages and LiangDao CEO Dr. Xueming Ju signed a cooperation contract on 27th August 2019 at Great Wall Motor headquarters in Baoding. Ibeo solid state LiDAR ibeoNEXT will initially be used in the SUV model Wey. Ibeo also plans to open a research and development centre in Beijing in 2019 in order to better serve the requirements and needs of the Chinese market.
Ibeo’s newly developed 4D solid state LiDAR sensor ibeoNEXT will ensure level 3 autonomous driving on production vehicles at Great Wall starting in 2021 and level 4 autonomous driving beginning in 2023. At level 3, for instance, the driver can temporarily avert attention from the tasks of driving and traffic. He or she must, however, be prepared at all times to take the wheel again. At level 4, the driver can even become a passenger and forego driving the vehicle altogether. The vehicle is capable of driving fully independently on certain routes (such as motorways and multi-storey car parks).
“The agreement is a great opportunity for China and Germany to advance technologies for the mobility of tomorrow,” says Dr. Ulrich Lages, CEO of Ibeo Automotive. “China is a driving force when it comes to the use of e- mobility and autonomous driving. Great Wall Motor is the ideal partner for us to jointly implement new sensor systems and solutions for autonomous driving.”
„It is great pleasure to cooperate with Ibeo and LiangDao Intelligence in the aspect of promoting the application of AD in China and even worldwide with LiDAR technologies. The strategic cooperation among three parties is one of the most important elements for GWM to achieve L3 AD in 2021, as well to realize L4 AD trial operation under specific scenarios and environments. Signing the Agreement has a huge significance, meaning three parties have come to a further phase of pragmatic cooperation“, says Kai Zhang, Deputy General Manger from Great Wall Motor.
System Validation and Testing
Ibeo has been working together with LiangDao Intelligence to serve the Chinese market since 2018. The company offers validation solutions for autonomous driving. Before vehicle sensors are introduced into vehicle series production, extensive testing must be carried out to ensure that the environmental data was correctly recorded by the sensor. The aim of the test procedure is to avoid undesired driving functions that occur due to faulty measurement data. LiangDao handles the entire testing procedure, also known as validation, for Ibeo and Great Wall Motors. “Driving safety would always be the first concern when we talk about L3 and L4 applcaitions. How to evaluate the eyes of the self-driving vehicles and efficiently provide the KPIs at different scenarios is quite challenging, but also very essential to achieve the real applications. LiangDao hopes to contribute in this new field and ensure driving safety”, says Dr. Xueming Ju, the CEO of LiangDao Intelligence.
ibeoNEXT sensor takes autonomous driving to the next level
Ibeo is currently developing a solid state scanner to power the next generation of LiDAR. The conventional LiDAR sensors on the today’s market work with mechanically operated mirrors, enabling them to detect objects at a distance of up to 200 metres in front of the vehicle. The ibeoNEXT LiDAR sensor eliminates moving parts altogether and instead employs a solution based entirely on semiconductors. Thanks to the elimination of mechanical components, solid state scanners are not only smaller, more robust, and thus more reliable in the long term, they also boast high resolution and a large vertical “field of view”.
About Ibeo
Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH has positioned itself as a global technology leader for LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors and the associated products and software tools. This technology is used in vehicle assistance systems and in the field of autonomous driving. Ibeo has made it its mission to reinvent mobility by transforming vehicles into cooperative partners, thus making road traffic even safer. Ibeo employs almost 400 people at its locations in Hamburg (Germany) Eindhoven (Netherlands) and Detroit (USA). Since 2016, automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG has held a 40 per cent share in Ibeo through Zukunft Ventures GmbH. In 2018, Ibeo has celebrated its 20th anniversary.
About Great Wall Motor
Great Wall Motor Company Limited is China’s largest SUV and pickup truck manufacturer. Great Wall has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 2003 and on the Shanghai Stock Exchange since 2011. Great Wall Motors spearheads two brands – Naval and Great Wall – which cover three categories: SUVs, passenger cars, and pickup trucks. With over 30 holding companies, more than 60,000 employees, and four vehicle locations, the company is one of the largest up-and-coming automobile manufacturers in the People’s Republic of China.
Further information is available at: www.gwm-global.com
About LiangDao Intelligence
LiangDao Intelligence is an intelligent testing & validation service provider aiming at promoting the mass production ready level 3 and level 4 autonomous driving, the technology mainly relies on LiDAR and multi-sensor fusion. LiangDao Intelligence is a global organization company with its headquarter in Beijing, two R&D centers in Berlin and Munich, a business center in Shanghai as well as an engineering workshop in GuAn.
Further information is available at: www.liangdao.ai