On December 18, the mining giant Rio Tinto stated that it will automate the assembly and upgrade of its autopilot system for 48 trucks in an iron ore mine in Australia. The plan will be completed by the end of 2019, when Rio Tinto's number of unmanned trucks in this mine will reach nearly 400. In a report, Yiou think-tank pointed out that autopilot has considerable market potential in the logistics and transportation sectors such as trucks and logistics vehicles. The single road condition has lower performance requirements for autopilot and AI technology, and there are viable commercial revenue channels. Traditional automakers, technology companies, emerging Internet giants and many start-ups have already targeted the truck's autopilot. Long-term tracking of the CB Insights data for the venture capital industry shows that companies and investors have invested US$1 billion in autopilot and other freight technologies this year, 10 times more than three years ago. However, at present, most of the examples that have entered the application stage are still within the closed operating range. Freight Automation Starts with "Closed Area" Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Reedstedt said in an interview with a number of media including the day that in commercial vehicles including trucks, the Volvo Group has focused its application of automatic driving on closed areas as the most practical "Application scenario. “The current most widely used should be in closed and controlled area scenarios, including ports, mining areas, or some 'hub-to-hub' transport areas, which may be easier to achieve full automation.†He said. The safety issue is a key factor in the current need for a specific work environment for self-driving trucks. A logistics company employee pointed out to reporters that taking the fourth phase of Shanghai Yangshan Port Area, which was commissioned on December 14 as an example, “a manned freight vehicle will be transported to a designated location and then automatically The crane is placed in the area and the container is placed on an unmanned shuttle bus by an automated crane. This area is its automated port area.†He said, “In this particular area, the line is The prescribed route and driving path are all of the same nature as one-way streets." In addition, the "closed area" is more convenient in terms of laws and regulations. Volts Group's CTO Lars Stent quist told reporters that the laws and regulations in various countries are quite different. Auto-driving trucks in the closed area are relatively less affected by regulations and have wide adaptability. "Automated vehicles are initially used in a controlled and safe area to increase public acceptance, speed up automated applications, and make it easier to obtain approval from relevant authorities." "For the 'enclosed area', the technical route is basically similar to the urban public road, but owners of the park have greater freedom in terms of laws and regulations. If the park uses a non-driving vehicle, it can actually give the unmanned vehicle a higher degree of freedom. Priority, even dedicated roads,†Yang Ming, a professor at the Shanghai Jiaotong University’s Department of Automation, told reporters in an interview. Out of the "closed area" needs to tackle In Yang Ming's view, freight automation will become just a need. Different from passenger and private cars, freight transport is a mechanical labor that reciprocates on a fixed route. It is meaningful to replace this kind of repetitive work with automatic driving. The need to reduce costs and increase efficiency also drives the process of freight automation. According to statistics, China’s highway traffic accounted for 77.6% of China’s freight traffic in 2016. The high logistics cost is one of the bottlenecks in the development of the domestic logistics industry. In 2016, the total social logistics cost in China was 11.1 trillion yuan, accounting for 3% of the world's GDP above the global average. In November, the Volvo Group launched its first "hub-to-hub" freight self-driving truck. “The development of e-commerce and mobile payment in China is at the forefront of the world, and it has promoted the circulation of goods and brought tremendous opportunities to our products.†Reedstedt said that the development of e-commerce has a long-term transportation efficiency New requirements are raised in terms of fuel economy, etc. Existing technologies are facing innovation and challenges, providing space for the application of autonomous driving technology. However, the inadequacy of demand scenarios has become an obstacle to the development of freight "automation." Yang Ming pointed out that at home, large-scale freight vehicles are often faced with the same situation as daily private cars on the expressway. The ideal state of straight roads and small traffic flow is rare, pedestrians slam through roads and other issues also cause road conditions. More complicated. According to Yang Ming, the current bottleneck problem of driverless technology is mainly in three aspects: environmental awareness and positioning, decision-making and planning, and vehicle control, among which vehicle control is relatively mature. "The current level of theoretical development in the field of control far exceeds the demand for actual application technology at this stage. It is relatively backward in terms of environmental awareness and decision-making. Even if the truck has a large volume and heavy weight after being loaded, as long as we do a good job in vehicle modeling, Advanced control algorithms can solve these problems at the current stage, and at the perceptual and decision-making levels, the lack of low-cost, high-performance sensors and artificial intelligence basic theories still make the unmanned system still have great challenges in a complex traffic environment. Yang Ming told reporters.