Tongji University launches world's first unmanned cloud-controlled autonomous vehicle testing system

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China’s Tongji University has recently unveiled the "Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Cloud-Controlled Fully Autonomous Testing System," the world's first cloud-controlled multi-participant testing system for intelligent and connected vehicles.

Launch event; photo credit: 2024 China Auto Forum

This system aims to create the industry's first closed testing facility capable of continuous dynamic scenario city NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) testing, addressing the diverse safety validation needs of high-level autonomous vehicles in complex and dynamic urban environments.

Professor Xiong Lu, the project lead, explained that existing evaluation systems feature simplistic test scenarios, single-type traffic participants, fixed operational settings, and fragmented function testing. To address these issues, Tongji University developed this advanced system at its Intelligent Connected Vehicle Testing and Evaluation Base, authorized by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The system comprises two main platforms: cloud-based digital twins and simulated traffic participants, alongside three key technologies: automatic generation of dangerous scenarios, collaborative planning among multiple traffic participants, and high-precision motion control at the vehicle end. This enables the creation of a complex traffic test environment featuring dynamic traffic flow, diverse traffic participants, flexible operational settings, and proactive conflict scenario generation, meeting the safety validation requirements for high-level autonomous vehicles.

This testing system is benchmarked against top global intelligent vehicle test sites such as Mcity in the United States and AstaZero in Sweden. It is the first to achieve large-scale, dynamic, and complex real-world traffic scenario testing applications.