A smart road that can “talk” with autonomous vehicles circulating on it, making traffic safer for everyone. This is the project currently being tested by Huawei in China, as Bloomberg reported on Wednesday (13).
The municipality of Wuxi, in Jiangsu Province, was the location chosen by the Chinese giant to put the smart road concept into practice. In a short stretch of 4 km, an autonomous bus passes through obstacles, stops, accelerates and decelerates based on information received from sensors, radars, cameras and other devices installed on the track.
Called the X-Bus, the vehicle travels connected to a transport control network capable of seeing and deciding what happens on site. It also sends information information to the system in real time and can even place an order, such as changing the sync of traffic lights to be able to meet your schedule, for example.
According to the publication, there is always a human driver sitting behind the wheel of the X-Bus, even though the vehicle is fully autonomous. He is only there to ensure safety, and can take over in the event of a technology failure.
Huawei car?
The smart road project developed by the technology giant, together with partners, led to rumors about a possible entry of the company into the automotive sector. But according to Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, developing a self-driving car is not the company’s intention.
He said he only wanted to provide the software and equipment needed to connect vehicles and roads, making more accurate and instantaneous information available to drivers, pedestrians and other users of the road system as well.
The largest car market on the planet, China plans that cars with at least some kind of automation and capable of connecting to systems like this from Huawei will account for more than 50% of sales in the country by 2025.
