Chongqing – After the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Challenge, the Urban Traffic Scene Challenge of i-VISTA Grand Challenge kicked off on August 25. There are 31 motorcades from car manufacturers, technology companies, colleges, research institutes, and two overseas motorcades taking part in the competition. Different from the ADAS Challenge, cars in this competition are all self-driving (autonomous) vehicles.

The Urban Traffic Scene Challenge is also known as the Challenge for (the) Smartest Cars. It requires motorcades to complete 15 scenarios, including security, efficiency, information services, communication, and location capabilities within a time limit of 12 minutes. The results considered accurate perception and rapid decision-making capabilities of participating vehicles, as well as comprehensive capabilities for adaptive adaptation of typical urban roads and traffic scenes. Notably, there were more random scenarios than last year, and motorcades did not know the order of obstacles. Therefore, the competition’s challenges demonstrated the algorithm and on the fly decision-making ability of the automatic driving systems.

The departure ceremony of the Urban Traffic Scene Challenge

China Automotive Technology and Research Center Lijia Park has a collection of urban scenes for smart car research and evaluation. It is called the i-VISTA National Intelligent Vehicle Integrated System Pilot Area Phase I Project Urban Traffic Scene Test Area. The park has model city streets, bends, ramps, bridges, tunnels, cross T-junctions, and other examples of realistic Chongqing driving characteristics. Roads, as well as intelligent sensors, high-precision positioning, real-time communication by vehicles, smart traffic management, and other infrastructure, can provide realistic conditions to evaluate the competition. Moreover, on the eve of the contest, Chongqing Telecom completed full coverage of the park with its 5G network, providing ultra-high-speed communication network support for the event and the test area.

The competition requires motorcades to complete 15 scenarios including security, efficiency, information services, communication and location capabilities within 12 minutes

However, it was not all smooth sailing for participants. A participating motorcade parked for a long time before passing the obstacle course, and then manually bypassed several obstacles. At last, this team abandoned the competition. Additionally, another electric park sightseeing car motorcade was tested at an accident site. It stopped before a steep slope, and finally, the staff assisted the car to bypass the obstacle, resulting in disqualifying failure. Afterward, several other contestants failed by other various mistakes.

The simulation scenario of jaywalking

What caused the teams to make many mistakes?

Zhou Zhou, General Manager of China Automotive Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd. and the team leader of the event, said, “We increased the difficulty of the competition to prevent the leakage of obstacles in the competition venue.” Moreover, it helps to plug the loopholes in the driving procedure according to the route and obstacles.

This competition is an opportunity to find problems with smart cars

The competition route was only arranged two hours before it began so that no team could have advance knowledge. In addition, several random scenarios were added to the competition system. The participating motorcades could not know the distribution order of all the scenes so that the vehicle had to solve all problems in real-time during the competition.
“This requires the algorithm and self-determination ability of the automatic driving system. Although it is a difficult test for the 31 teams, we are happy to find problems so that we can research deeply and resolve them.” Said Zhou Zhou.