The first JiDU Automotive level 4 (L4) autonomous vehicle will be powered by the NVIDIA Drive Orin system-on-chip (SoC) and roll off the production line in 2023.
Under the five levels of autonomous driving, L4 is consdered to be fully autonomous with the car handling most driving situations independently.
JiDU is an automotive robotics start-up company formed in March 2021 by Baidu Group with investment from China car maker Geely Group.
“The JiDU vehicle has been designed to operate under the concepts of free movement, natural communication and self-improvement,” said Robin Li, Co-founder and CEO of Baidu.
“First, the JiDU self-driving vehicle features L4 autonomous driving capability for free movement. Second, human-car interaction and accurate identification of speech semantics enable the car to communicate naturally. Third, the vehicle can self-learn and iterate based on user’s habits and constantly optimize autonomous driving features and smart cockpit experiences to realize self-growth,” he added.
JiDU’s intelligent driving system covers all-area autonomous driving scenarios to provide safe and reliable autonomous driving functions across high-speed and urban open road environments. It is powered by Baidu’s autonomous driving computing platform using NVIDIA Drive Orin with software and algorithms jointly developed by JiDU and Baidu.
NVIDIA DRIVE Orin processes 254 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of computing performance and can support autonomous driving functions, confidence view visualisation, digital clusters, infotainment, and passenger interaction AI. With software upgradess over the air, it is available for automakers and truck makers with production vehicles starting later this year.
Last year, China electric automaker NIO has also picked the SoC to power its new generation of electric vehicles, which are expected to hit the streets this year.
“More and more established automakers and start-ups alike are turning to NVIDIA Drive Orin for building their software-defined cars with advanced AI capabilities. Working closely with Baidu and JiDU, we’re helping bring to the market a new generation of vehicles that will offer consumers a safe and intelligent driving experience,” said Tong Liu, General Manager of NVIDIA’s automotive business in China.
“Relying on Baidu’s advanced AI capabilities and autonomous driving technology, as well as NVIDIA Ddrive Orin compute power, we can provide users with leading safe and reliable self-driving products, and create vehicles that can move around freely and get better over time. In 2023, JiDU’s first mass-produced product will surely become the benchmark for smart cars,” said Yiping Xia, CEO of JiDU.
Entelechy Asia 