Self-driving engineer training base launched in Guizhou

A self-driving engineer training base was launched Monday in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province.

Located in Guiyang High-tech Industrial Development Zone, the training base is equipped with advanced hardware including LiDARs, industrial cameras, industrial computer numerical control machines and metal 3D printing systems, as well as over 10 vehicles with self-driving development platforms.

The base was launched by Guizhou's self-driving platform PIX Moving, together with Silicon Valley-based online education platform Udacity and Autoware, an open-source software for self-driving vehicles.

The base will offer a simulated offline learning environment enabling engineers to test algorithms on real vehicles.

"Efficiency is quite high when you adopt auto mobility," said Kazuya Takeda, professor at the School of Information Science, Nagoya University. "We need to solve many problems to develop automated vehicles for various service fields, and an open platform is one possible solution to accelerate innovation."

Yu Chuan, founder and CEO of Pix driving, said: "What we hope to build is a developer community, to develop self-driving with open-ended innovation, and to advance product development in a decentralized manner."

Guiyang, capital of China's first big data comprehensive pilot zone, will soon introduce rules for testing intelligent and connected vehicles and issue test licenses, the local government said.

The city has drawn sections of roads in the Shawen Eco Tech Park, Guiyang's High-tech Industrial Development Zone, as the first-phase to test roads. At the same time, Guiyang is to build a 20-kilometer-long road combining a large number of high-tech products and elements, including self-driving.

"Apart from strong policy support, the pleasant weather conditions make the city a suitable place for the training base, Robert Hsiung, general manager of Udacity China," told Xinhua.

According to Alexander Carballo Segura, designated associate professor of Nagoya University, Guiyang has "the vision to see self-driving as a center of technology development, not only in China but also in the world."

"Guiyang High-tech Industrial Development Zone is dedicated to creating an atmosphere of global collaboration and will continue to pay close attention to self-driving and talent cultivation," said Zhang Yu, deputy director of Guiyang High-tech Industrial Development Zone Management Committee.