Autonomous mining vehicle and autonomous sanitation vehicle markets take off.
This report highlights progress of autonomous working vehicles in four fields: sanitation, airport, agriculture and mining.
Autonomous working vehicles that run on relatively closed roads and fixed routes, are often free of public road traffic rules, making for popularization of highly automated driving technology. Although the COVID-19 pandemic hinders the development of autonomous driving at airports for the time being, autonomous driving technology for sanitation, agriculture and mining is developing by leaps and bounds.
Autonomous sanitation vehicle
Urban autonomous sanitation street sweepers shall travel at speeds lower than 12km/h according to China’s national standards. The use of autonomous driving technology in sanitation field enables all-weather and more efficient operation subject to strict specifications. In China, autonomous sweepers are being piloted in dozens of places nationwide, mainly for enclosed scenarios such as parks and scenic spots. As China spends RMB200 billion to RMB300 billion on sanitation and more than 100,000 sanitation vehicles are sold each year, autonomous sanitation vehicle sales and service market will be worth a staggering tens of billions of yuan considering sanitation vehicles are being replaced by self-driving ones.
In China, vision + radar solution currently prevails among technology roadmaps of autonomous sanitation vehicle manufacturers who differ greatly in underlying algorithms and sensor cost control. As pilot run and operation of autonomous sanitation vehicles are under way in some places of China, solution providers face challenges of cost control posed by mass production, so most of them turn to homemade sensors and low-cost computing platforms like ARM from NVIDIA.
![专 1.png](/UpLoads/Article/2020/专%201.png)
Most start-ups build autonomous sweepers based on existing sweeping vehicles, while body frame and modules of Idriverplus VIGGO are developed specially for autonomous vehicle. VIGGO’s electronic/electrical architecture consists of the following domains: Computing and Control, Powertrain, Body System, Steering System, Business System, and Information and Communication.
![专2.png](/UpLoads/Article/2020/专2.png)
The new design that dispenses with driver’s seat saves seat space for water tank or battery to increase effective operating radius.
By virtue of down-to-earth R&D and reliable products, Idriverplus acquired orders for 1,000 units of its 5G autonomous vehicles from China Mobile in July 2019. Hundreds of VIGGO sweepers have been sold.
In February 2020, Idriverplus also rolled out a spraying sterilizer vehicle for curbing coronavirus disease.
![专3.png](/UpLoads/Article/2020/专3.png)
Apart from VIGGO, cockpitless design is also found in AXL, a fully autonomous concept mining truck introduced by Scania. The vehicle represents a future trend for mining vehicle.
![专4.png](/UpLoads/Article/2020/专4.png)
Autonomous mining vehicle
Autonomous mining vehicles already find broad application in foreign countries. Autonomous mining vehicles of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (FMG), an iron ore tycoon, have run a total of 33.5 million km and transported more than 1 billion tons of ores and materials, with production efficiency 30% higher than conventional manual transport. FMG has operated 137 self-driving mining vehicles.
In China, mining companies need to pay out tens of billions of yuan for workers to transport ores and materials each year, who cannot still ensure transport safety and efficiency. In major mining areas of China, road dump trucks featuring non-widebody and small tonnage are largely used with ownership of roughly 200,000 units, while around 5,000 units of off-road wide body dump trucks for mining are produced and sold annually, with ownership of just over 10,000 units. The refitted autonomous mining vehicle market (OEM and aftermarket) in China is valued at least RMB500 billion.
As concerns technology roadmap, mining trucks usually utilize the LiDAR + vision + radar solution for their common price of RMB800,000 at least makes manufacturers seldom weigh the cost of LiDAR. The three sensor fusion solution allows all-day, all-weather perception by sensing system in bad conditions at mines. That mining vehicles travel at low speeds and in simple environment means that LiDAR is optional so some companies also use vision + radar solution for a sharp cut in refit cost.
Major autonomous mining truck solution providers in China have actual projects carried out but all on small scale. Most of autonomous mining truck start-ups have closed one or two funding rounds, marking that capital has turned attention to the segment. At present, they are close to each other in technology roadmap but still need to improve their technology, with orders they announced often worth RMB100 million or so and few vehicles operated (generally dozens of units), which means no one plays a leading role.
![专5.png](/UpLoads/Article/2020/专5.png)
Following a contract for two new autonomous vehicles signed on July 4, 2019, Beijing Tage Idriver Technology Co., Ltd. and Inner Mongolia North Hauler Joint Stock Co., Ltd., China’s largest mining truck manufacturer sweeping 80% of the domestic market, signed on April 8, 2020 a supply order for 10 sets of “autonomous driving control systems”, which will be mounted on 10 units of new NTE200AT vehicles.
Autonomous agricultural vehicle
Autonomous driving for agricultural machinery, the simplest one among all autonomous driving technologies for special vehicles, depends more on high-precision positioning systems and software algorithms. Mainstream hardware configuration is Beidou system + angle sensor + IMU, and vision is optional and available to users who need. In terms of technology roadmap, OEMs often use a hydraulic solution where electro-hydraulic proportional valves are used to drive steering wheel. In aftermarket, the electric steering wheel solution in which motors are used to simulate manual driving is largely used due to being easy to refit and low cost.
Globally, big agricultural machinery manufacturers all have a range of models pre-installed autonomous driving technology (GPS Ready). Examples include John Deere 8R Series, Case New Holland Magnum Series, and AGCO Auto Guide 3000 with standard configuration of Danfoss hydraulic valves. In the Chinese OEM market, hydraulic solutions rule the roost.
In aftermarket, hydraulic and steering wheel autonomous driving solutions take up a considerable proportion of installation and sales. In the Chinese market, flagship products of most system providers are steering wheel solution. Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co., Ltd. provides both hydraulic and steering wheel solutions but the hydraulic dominate; Shanghai AllyNav Technology Co., Ltd. has offerings of both, of which the hydraulic led previously and the steering wheel got vigorously promoted in 2019. Of the shipments of autonomous driving systems for agricultural machinery in China, electric steering wheel solutions shared roughly 20% and the hydraulic solutions swept 80% from 2018 to 2019.
In view of application, agricultural machinery self-driving systems are still expensive (RMB70,000-RMB80,000/set), and massively used in areas with large farmlands, like Xinjiang and Northeastern China. Agricultural machinery autonomous driving system market in China will be valued at RMB4 billion to RMB5 billion given that virtually 200,000 units of mid- and high-end tractors are sold a year and penetration of such systems is 50%. In future, autonomous driving and variable operations will bring a larger market.
![专6_副本.png](/UpLoads/Article/2020/专6_副本.png)
Ecological Domain and Automotive Hardware Expansion Research Report, 2024
Automotive Ecological Domain Research: How Will OEM Ecology and Peripheral Hardware Develop? Ecological Domain and Automotive Hardware Expansion Research Report, 2024 released by ResearchInChina ...
C-V2X and CVIS Industry Research Report, 2024
C-V2X and CVIS Research: In 2023, the OEM scale will exceed 270,000 units, and large-scale verification will start.The pilot application of "vehicle-road-cloud integration” commenced, and C-V2X entere...
Automotive Intelligent Cockpit Platform Configuration Strategy and Industry Research Report, 2024
According to the evolution trends and functions, the cockpit platform has gradually evolved into technical paths such as cockpit-only, cockpit integrated with other domains, cockpit-parking integratio...
Analysis on Huawei's Electrification, Connectivity, Intelligence and Sharing,2023-2024
Analysis on Huawei's Electrification, Connectivity, Intelligence and Sharing: Comprehensive layout in eight major fields and upgrade of Huawei Smart Selection
The “Huawei Intelligent Driving Business...
Li Auto’s Layout in Electrification, Connectivity, Intelligence and Sharing and Strategy Analysis Report, 2023-2024
Li Auto overestimates the BEV market trend and returns to intensive cultivation.
In the MPV market, Denza D9 DM-i with the highest sales (8,030 units) in January 2024 is a hybrid electric vehicle (H...
Analysis on NIO’s Layout in Electrification, Connectivity, Intelligence and Sharing, 2023
Analysis on NIO’s Layout in Electrification, Connectivity, Intelligence and Sharing, 2023
Because of burning money and suffering a huge loss, many people thought NIO would soon go out of business. NI...
Monthly Monitoring Report on China Automotive Sensor Technology and Data Trends (Issue 3, 2024)
Insight into intelligent driving sensors: “Chip-based” reduces costs, and the pace of installing 3-LiDAR solutions in cars quickens. LiDARs were installed in 173,000 passenger cars in China in Q1 2024...
Autonomous Driving Simulation Industry Report, 2024
Autonomous Driving Simulation Research: Three Trends of Simulation Favoring the Implementation of High-level Intelligent Driving.
On November 17, 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Techno...
Mobile Charging Robot Research Report, 2024
Research on mobile charging robot: more than 20 companies have come in and have implemented in three major scenarios.
Mobile Charging Robot Research Report, 2024 released by ResearchInChina highlight...
End-to-end Autonomous Driving (E2E AD) Research Report, 2024
End-to-end Autonomous Driving Research: status quo of End-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving
1. Status quo of end-to-end solutions in ChinaAn end-to-end autonomous driving system refers to direct mappi...
Monthly Monitoring Report on China Automotive Intelligent Driving Technology and Data Trends (Issue 2, 2024)
Insight into intelligent driving: ECARX self-develops intelligent driving chips, and L2.5 installation soared by 175% year on year.
Based on the 2023 version, the 2024 version of Monthly...
Monthly Monitoring Report on China Automotive Intelligent Cockpit Technology and Data Trends (Issue 2, 2024)
Insight into intelligent cockpit: the trend towards large screens is obvious, with >10" center console screens sweeping over 80%.
Based on the 2023 Edition, the 2024 Edition of Monthly Monitoring...
China Intelligent Driving Fusion Algorithm Research Report, 2024
Intelligent Driving Fusion Algorithm Research: sparse algorithms, temporal fusion and enhanced planning and control become the trend.
China Intelligent Driving Fusion Algorithm Research Report, 2024 ...
Automotive Electronics OEM/ODM/EMS Industry Report, 2024
Automotive electronics OEM/ODM/EMS research: top players’ revenue has exceeded RMB10 billion, and new entrants have been coming in.
At present, OEMs in the Chinese automotive electronics indus...
Analysis on Xpeng’s Layout in Electrification, Connectivity, Intelligence and Sharing, 2023
Research on Xpeng’s layout in electrification, connectivity, intelligence and sharing: in the innovation-driven rapid development, secured orders for 100 flying cars.
NIO, Xp...
Automotive Cockpit SoC Research Report, 2024
Automotive Cockpit SoC Research: Automakers quicken their pace of buying SoCs, and the penetration of domestic cockpit SoCs will soar
Mass production of local cockpit SoCs is accelerating, and the l...
Automotive Integrated Die Casting Industry Report, 2024
Integrated Die Casting Research: adopted by nearly 20 OEMs, integrated die casting gains popularity.
Automotive Integrated Die Casting Industry Report, 2024 released by ResearchInChina summari...
China Passenger Car Cockpit Multi/Dual Display Research Report, 2023-2024
In intelligent cockpit era, cockpit displays head in the direction of more screens, larger size, better looking, more convenient interaction and better experience. Simultaneously, the conventional “on...