Chinese internet powerhouse Baidu has won a bid to build road infrastructure for autonomous cars in Yangquan, Shanxi, the company announced in a statement on Wednesday.
Baidu will establish a demonstration zone in Yangquan for the tests and operations of an autonomous driving and vehicle-infrastructure cooperative system, which is used to enhance the interaction between self-driving vehicles and smart road infrastructure. This allows vehicles to improve their understanding of surrounding road conditions.
As part of the project, Baidu will deploy edge computing and signal collection systems on roads to detect objects and transmit data. The company will also provide a public cloud-based control platform for vehicle-infrastructure cooperation and monitoring autonomous vehicles.
Baidu and the municipal government of Yangquan have established a partnership in November 2019, in which the internet giant will develop an intelligent vehicle-infrastructure cooperative system and a test field in the city.
The Yangquan project is the third self-driving infrastructure project Baidu has secured in the past week. It won an RMB 52.8 million (USD 7.45 million) contract from the government of Yongchuan district in Chongqing on March 17 to develop an open testing base for autonomous vehicles, which will enable a fleet of more than 100 self-driving cars on the roads after the construction is completed.
Baidu also won a bid to construct a 5G-enabled vehicle-infrastructure cooperative system in Binhu New District of Hefei, Anhui on Monday. JAC Motors, Ankai, and Volkswagen will be among the first batch of automakers to conduct road tests for autonomous vehicles on the newly-built facility.
