The NCA Experience in Avita City: It’s Not It, It’s the World that’s Problematic
When talking about the Avita brand, the first word that comes to my mind is "slow".
From release, to delivery, to the release of the single-motor version, Avita has a rhythm of life once a year:
- In 2021, I witnessed its birth in Shanghai and learned about Avita's theoretical system
- In 2022, I fell into the "emotional vortex" in Chongqing, and felt the acceleration ability that did not match its temperament
- In 2023, Avita 11 showed me its smart side through urban NCA
But it is also this kind of "slowness" with an extremely long cycle that makes me have a rather subtle emotion for the Avita 11 model. Avita 11 is like a neighbor’s kid. Every time I come back from vacation, I can’t help sighing:
This kid has grown so big.
In Shenzhen, be a law-abiding citizen
When I saw Avita 11 last time, its car machine and intelligent driving system were still not ready, so I can only comment on its driving aspect.
I still remember when I said that the suspension of Avita 11 rebounded quickly when driving normally, and it was calm and crisp when crossing the ditch. With the unique selection of materials and breakthrough concept design on the interior, it behaved like a luxurious car. GT.
However, it is definitely not a car for cutting corners. Its labels are exquisite, elegant and calm.
Therefore, compared to Chongqing, which is full of Jianghu atmosphere, Avita 11 may be more suitable for Shanghai, not only because of its appearance and temperament, but also one of the reasons why Shanghai is too congested to drive fast.
And now, there is one more reason – Avita 11's urban NCA smart driving navigation aid supports the city of Shanghai.
In fact, the urban NCA of Avita 11 can not only be used in Shanghai, but also be a law-abiding citizen on the streets of Shenzhen. This time, Dong Chehui came to Shenzhen and recorded the real performance of NCA in the 11th city of Avita.
However, before that, let's take a look at what preparations Avita 11 has made in terms of smart driving.
As an important part of the AVATRANS intelligent navigation system, the NCA of Avita 11 is based on Huawei ADS.
Different from the pure vision solution, Avita has arranged a total of 34 sensors on the body, the most obvious of which is the lidar located on the front and sides of the body. Thanks to the 300° horizontal FOV built by the 3 lidars, the system can Make a more accurate judgment on the status of vehicles coming from the side and rear.
Avita 11 can not only collect 360° all-round view of the external environment, but also present this information on the dashboard in the form of a 3D model.
How fine is this interactive interface?
You can not only see the open doors of vehicles on the side of the road, but also see whether the turn signals/brake lights of vehicles in front are on, especially pedestrians, cats and dogs, piles, and traffic lights.
We can spy on the visual perception ability of Avita 11 from the environmental information mapped on the human-computer interface, but for those obstacles that the system cannot distinguish, it depends on the three lidars.
A few examples: white walls, falling rocks, mounds of dirt.
These unmarked obstacles bring endless risks in the long-tail case, but Avita 11 has only one idea:
I don't know who you are, but I know you're in my way.
Avita 11, just a mirror
During the experience of Avita 11 City NCA this time, the co-driver has been sitting with an entourage arranged by the manufacturer, Mr. Zeng.
During the chat, I learned that before the test drive, they conducted about a week of training. During this period, they need to fully understand the product to deal with sudden questions from the media. How to know? Functional parameters are one aspect, and what is more important is the experience of using NCA in urban areas.
Mr. Zeng told me that when he used this function for the first time, "I was more nervous than it".
The road environment differences between urban roads and expressways are very clear to everyone, so there is no need to say more. Building trust with urban NCAs in a denser traffic population will of course take more time.
With round after round of round-trip driving, Mr. Zeng is already very familiar with the test drive route, and knows where to pay attention and what to pay attention to.
Even, during this week's training, he personally summed up a point of view:
Avita 11 is a mirror, from which you can see all kinds of traffic participants.
Well, let's put this sentence here first, let's take a look at what problems we both encountered in this 30-minute urban NCA experience.
First of all, let me explain the road conditions. The traffic flow is still quite large, which is more in line with our daily road conditions when traveling. After the whole process, Avita 11 in NCA state can perform the following actions excellently:
- Lane change
- to turn
- Identify traffic lights
- off ramp
- Merge into the main road
- Yield Here To Peds
- Obstacle avoidance
In terms of road selection, when driving on clearly marked urban roads, Avita 11 will automatically go on and off the ramp according to the destination and passing points set by the navigation, and automatically select the optimal lane for traffic.
What is the optimal lane?
For example, if there are two left-turn lanes ahead of you, you need to turn left first, then turn right at the next intersection.
At this time, Avita 11 will give priority to the left-turn lane on the right to obtain higher traffic efficiency.
Enough details, I believe everyone can guess the secret of realizing this function – high-precision map.
However, high-precision maps also have their problems, and their problems are not small.
Since the high-precision map is mapped by blocks, it is easy to form obvious block breakpoints between blocks. When passing through the block breakpoints, the Avita 11 in the NCA state will often suddenly downgrade to ICA assisted driving, or even Manual takeover will be required directly . The NCA is not automatically reset until the block breakpoint has been driven.
During my experience, I happened to pass a block breakpoint when I was leaving the ramp. Fortunately, Mr. Zeng reminded me, which made me mentally prepared.
However, users who usually use NCA in urban areas will not have a special person sitting by their side to remind them all the time.
Another problem arises when making an unprotected left turn. Avita 11 at the intersection was not very decisive. In the end, it still needed to adjust the direction manually to help it.
Yes, when the system hesitates, you can turn the steering wheel at any time, or give the accelerator a kick, and it will completely obey your instructions, and then drive autonomously.
You might think it's too polite sometimes, but think back to that sentence:
Avita 11 is a mirror, from which you can see all kinds of traffic participants.
What is problematic is not it, but the various bad driving habits that it reflects.
Compared with the progress of assisted driving, I hope that everyone can pay attention to safety and drive civilizedly.
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