NavInfo granted go-ahead to conduct autonomous car road test in Beijing

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- NavInfo, a China-based navigation map provider, has recently obtained the temporary license plate from Beijing Municipal Government which allows the company to carry out autonomous vehicle road tests.

License plates used in the self-driving road tests of Beijing have five levels—from T1 to T5. The T3 plate released to NavInfo is the highest level that has been issued so far in the capital of China, showing that the to-be-tested vehicles feature capabilities such as road condition recognition, transportation law compliance and emergency handling.

Before getting the license, applicant vehicles should pass a series of tests in a 5,000-km closed testing ground with roughly 30 traffic scenarios, including automatic driving, speed change, lane changing, swerving, traffic signal recognition, obstacle avoidance, and understanding over traffic laws and driving rules.

NavInfo's vehicle involved in these tests is fitted with four 16-beam LiDARs, two long-range millimeter-wave radars and one monocular camera mounted with the company's self-developed visual sensing algorithm. The sensor combination is somewhat easier to be achieved with lower cost, while demands more over software and algorithm abilities, said NavInfo.

Beijing has currently opened 44 roads that span 123km in total for autonomous vehicle road tests, covering multiple transportation scenarios of urban areas, countryside and highways across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.