Baidu announces pure vision L4 autonomous driving solution "Apollo Lite"

At CVPR (the world's top academic conference in the field of computer vision and pattern recognition) 2019, Baidu Apollo unveiled Baidu Apollo Lite, a closed-loop solution for autonomous driving pure vision urban roads. Wang Liang, chairman of the Apollo Technical Committee, explained the L4 level fully autonomous driving (Fully Autonomous Driving) environmental perception technology solution. Wang Liang introduced that Apollo Lite is currently the only L4 level visual perception solution for urban roads in China, which can support parallel processing of 10 cameras and 200 frames/second of data. The maximum frame loss rate of a single visual link can be controlled below 5‰, achieving all-round 360° real-time environmental perception, and the stable detection range of forward obstacles reaches 240 meters.

Wang Liang said that after early technical research and development investment and road test iterations in the first half of 2019, relying on this 10-camera perception system, Baidu's driverless car can already achieve end-to-end closed-loop autonomous driving on urban roads without relying on high-line-count rotating lidar.

It is understood that Apollo Lite has been tested on multiple roads in many places such as Beijing Daoxiang Lake. This low-cost near-car-grade surround-view perception system can also be downgraded to support ADAS assisted driving applications, creating more valuable application scenarios.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.