Huawei
is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT)
infrastructure and smart devices. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese
multinational technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong.
Huawei
considers intelligent automotive components as its long-term strategic
opportunity. The company will continue to channel more investments into this
field, particularly into the development of autonomous driving software, to
build an advanced autonomous driving system.
This
year, Huawei will form a team of over 5000 people working in the R&D of
intelligent automotive components, and its investment in this field will total
US$1 billion. By nurturing high-end talent through R&D centers in Europe,
Japan, and China, Huawei aims to strengthen its product competitiveness with a
focus on innovation, thereby delivering better products and optimal driving
experience to customers.
In
October 2020, Huawei launched the HI brand. As a digital car oriented provider
of new components, Huawei has closely worked with OEMs to build premium
intelligent vehicles under the innovative "Huawei Inside" initiative,
which includes a brand-new digital architecture for intelligent vehicles, five
intelligent solutions (Intelligent Driving, Intelligent Cockpit, mPower,
Intelligent Connectivity, and Intelligent Vehicle Cloud), and over 30
intelligent components.
"The
'Huawei Inside' initiative is designed to integrate Huawei's technological
strengths with the vehicle manufacturing capabilities of automakers to build
high-end intelligent vehicles that provide a more enjoyable driving
experience," commented William Wang, President of Huawei's Intelligent
Automotive Solution Business Unit (IAS BU). "Facing accelerated transformation
of intelligent vehicles, Huawei is committed to lighting up the future of
autonomous vehicles through innovation," he added.
Intelligent cockpit delivers an upgraded
driving experience
The
Huawei Intelligent Cockpit Solution adopts the self-developed computing
platform and HarmonyOS (cockpit), featuring an extensive application, software,
and hardware ecosystem that provides users with desired services and functions
through open collaboration with OEMs, tier-1 vendors, and app partners. Huawei
has developed cutting-edge technologies for the intelligent cockpit, to
continuously enhance user experience. For example, the Kirin head unit (HU)
modules feature an independent Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that performs
complex device processing; the Cockpit Vision smart screen can restore color
and enable smooth touch, delivering a pleasurable driving experience to users;
the AR-HUD is more compact in size, able to provide a larger field of view and
HD display.
Based
on its years of experience in the field of optical technology and its leading
futuristic technology, Huawei has rolled out a high-performance AR-HUD. The 10
L AR-HUD can transform an ordinary windshield into a 70-inch HD screen and
intelligently adjust the projection area by tracking users' eye movements. It
can display a viewing angle of 13° x 5°, allowing users to view detailed
information on the windshield. Its powerful visual identification and AI
capabilities deliver an immersive visual experience and driving assistance.
High-resolution 4D imaging radar enables
advanced autonomous driving
Huawei's
high-resolution 4D imaging radar uses a 12T24R large antenna array (12 transmit
channels and 24 receive channels), which offers a 24-fold improvement over the
antenna configuration of a conventional mmWave radar (3T4R) and 50% more
receive channels than industry imaging radars, making it an imaging radar with
the largest antenna array available for mass production.
The
4D imaging radar delivers a unique non-line-of-sight (NLOS) sensing strength
that helps detect hidden objects while maintaining superior distance and
velocity measurement capabilities of the traditional mmWave radar, allowing it
to perform functionally regardless of ambient lighting and bad weather. On top
of that, Huawei's 4D imaging radar has a high resolution and is capable of
confidently detecting objects with a larger detection range. It can produce a
point cloud density on par with lidars, enabling abundant radar applications
such as environment reconstruction, mapping, and localization. By converging
point clouds of multiple radars, vehicles can enjoy a 360° surround view,
thereby implementing full-coverage sensing of all objects in different
scenarios under all weather conditions.
It
is safe to say that 4D imaging radars will be the next standard sensor for
vehicles, enabling highly autonomous driving together with high-end lidars and
HD cameras.
HUAWEI MDC 810 — a platform with
unparalleled computing power
Currently,
the intelligent driving industry is gaining momentum, racing towards mass
production. Huawei is dedicated to building an open and standardized MDC. Based
on its solid experience and achievements in hardware, software, and security
engineering, Huawei has built the most powerful computing platform for
intelligent driving — MDC — accelerating the mass production of intelligent
vehicles.
The
MDC 810 launched during Auto Shanghai 2021 is a mass-produced intelligent
driving computing platform with the industry's highest computing power. It
provides dense computing power of up to 400 TOPS in compliance with the ASIL-D
safety requirements. Equipped with the MDC Core (including the intelligent
driving operating systems AOS and VOS) and a complete toolchain, the MDC 810
can enable high-level autonomous driving functions such as Traffic Jam Pilot
(TJP), Highway Pilot (HWP), and Auto Valet Parking (AVP). The ARCFOX Alpha S
sedan will be the first vehicle to feature HUAWEI MDC 810, and more vehicle
models will be powered by HUAWEI MDC series in the near future.
HUAWEI
MDC is an open, standardized platform aiming to boost the growth of the
intelligent driving industry. Huawei has been working closely with vendors of
sensors, actuators, and application algorithms to build such technology
ecosystems based on the MDC. Through the open computing platform, Huawei unites
the efforts of eco-partners to accelerate construction of the intelligent
driving ecosystem, stepping into the mass production phase of intelligent
vehicles.
HUAWEI Octopus, an open autonomous driving
platform
HUAWEI
Octopus leverages massive data, HD map, and advanced algorithms to build a
data-driven, closed-loop platform for intelligent driving. Relying on its
vehicle-cloud synergy, industry-leading annotation capacity, upgraded virtual
simulation, and one-stop secure, compliant cloud services, HUAWEI Octopus is
designed to help OEMs build autonomous driving development capabilities from
scratch, lower development requirements, and improve development efficiency.
Cloud
is the only bridge between autonomous driving development and its
commercialization. Vehicles in all regions must be connected to the local cloud
to help resolve the coverage, security, and scalability issues that come with
commercializing autonomous driving. By migrating data to cloud, developers no
longer need to worry about expanding equipment rooms to accommodate larger
volumes of data, allowing them to focus more on core algorithm development.
HD
maps are also a vital element for autonomous driving. In preparation for this,
Huawei officially announced its latest HD map cloud service capability and
roadmap at the product launch. Currently, Huawei has obtained grade-A surveying
and mapping qualification to produce electronic navigation maps and developed
comprehensive HD map data collection and mapping capabilities.
HUAWEI TMS: Building an intelligent,
integrated thermal management system
By
adopting a simplified architecture and centralizing the components as well as
control functions, Huawei TMS improves the operating temperature of heat pumps
from –10°C to –18°C without compromising on comfort. As a result, the range of
new energy vehicles (NEVs) is increased by 20%. In addition, HUAWEI TMS
provides personalized applications, helping OEMs build a thermal system with
optimal energy efficiency and superior experience.
As
the automobile industry shifts over to electric power, thermal management
systems are growing in importance. Currently, most NEVs use the inefficient PTC
heating solution, which reduces the range by 30% to 40% at lower temperatures.
As a result, the heat pump system that features high energy efficiency (twice
that of the PTC) will be the future of thermal management. It is estimated that
heat pumps may enjoy a 3x faster penetration rate between 2020 and 2025.
However, the conventional heat pump solution faces many challenges, namely,
excessive pipes and parts, poor environmental adaptability (not functional
below –10°C), and lack of intelligence (manual calibration), adversely
affecting the efficiency and application of the heat pump system. After four
years of research and development, Huawei has rolled out the most integrated,
intelligent thermal management solution for vehicles. Through integrated design
as well as centralized components and control functions, HUAWEI TMS has
achieved 100% improvement in energy efficiency, 60% improvement in calibration
efficiency, and improved user experience.
At
Auto Shanghai 2019, Huawei officially announced its entry into the market of
automotive components for intelligent vehicles. And over the past two years, Huawei
has established extensive cooperation with major global automakers. This year
will see the launch of several flagship models using Huawei's intelligent
components, marking the commercialisation of Huawei's intelligent automotive
solutions.