Inceptio Technology has shown the first two models of its mass-produced autonomous driving (AD) heavy-duty trucks at this year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China. The trucks, developed by Inceptio alongside Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle (DFCV) and Sinotruk, are equipped with Inceptio’s self-developed full-stack AD system Xuanyuan.
The collaboration between the three partners began back in 2019, and with the trio working closely on the strict compliance of the V-Model vehicle development process, Inceptio and its team have overcome many challenges posed by autonomous driving.
One of these included the first ever vehicle-level full-redundancy control-by-wire chassis in the heavy-duty truck industry, designed by Inceptio alongside several OEMs, with integrated international and domestic Tier 1 resources. This enables multi-redundancy in its steering, braking and power systems.
Alongside the two truck models, Inceptio also exhibited the company’s automotive-grade hardware suite for mass-produced truck models. This included lidar, millimeter-wave radar, camera, GPS/IMU, computing platform, gateway, T-Box, an IVI-Box and more. The components had to pass a multitude of strict engineering, development and production certifications, as well as electrical, mechanical, environmental and electromagnetic tests. It is stated that the products will be durable and reliable enough for a lifecycle of 1,500,000km on a heavy-duty truck.
Inceptio’s Xuanyuan system was first released in March 2021 and has so far undergone multiple upgrades to the core algorithms and software programs. The system is capable of spotting and identifying small objects in driving situations, even in the event of an obstruction or sparse point cloud inputs.
With a computing power of up to 245 TOPS, the self-developed onboard computing platform’s CPU and neural network’s accelerated computing power are stated to be ahead of other products available within the sector. The platform supports a multitude of advanced AD sensors, up to 12-channel 4K HD cameras and 10+ channel 1000/100 Base T1 Ethernet, and built-in GNSS sensors. Already qualified for mass production, the demo parts have passed electrical, electronic and electromagnetic compatibility tests.
At present, Inceptio’s AD functions cover 500+ typical ODD (operation design domain) scenarios. By carrying out further optimization through simulation and closed and open road tests, the company aims to upgrade the system’s algorithm to handle a variety of highway scenarios and complicated weather patterns.
“Only through full-stack self-development for mass production will we maintain a long-term competitive edge as an autonomous driving company,” commented Julian Ma, founder and CEO, Inceptio Technology. “Inceptio Technology is the forerunner of realizing automotive-grade mass production of AD trucks and safe operations on complicated open roads. It is now accelerating to be the leader in AD technology.”
