When autonomous driving techniques are widely used in passenger and freight transportation, public sector vehicles are also trying this new technique.
In Guangzhou Biological Island, Wenyuan Zhiyan Road Sweeper S1 has joined the operation and jointly contracted the cleaning of an island with the autonomous sanitation vehicle S6.
On April 3rd, Han Xu, founder and CEO of Wenyuan Zhiyan, declined interviews with Interface News and other sources, stating that unmanned environmental sanitation vehicles have entered the stage of large-scale commercial use, with shopping malls and technical prerequisites for large-scale commercial use. They will be the first to join commercial use in Guangzhou, Dongguan, Huzhou and other places, and the next step is to introduce legislation (implementation) and increase the number of sensors to improve equipment costs.
On the same day, Wenyuan Zhiyan announced its second environmental sanitation product – the unmanned road sweeper S1. According to the public, this is an L4 level unmanned environmental sanitation equipment aimed at the withering route and uncovering the entire scene.
Guangzhou is one of the earliest cities to introduce unmanned sanitation vehicles. In 2021, Guangzhou officially launched a pilot program for hybrid autonomous driving, proposing to optimize the use of vehicles, model management, public services, and accelerate the repair of 9 application scenarios, including autonomous driving vehicles; And the layout will gradually decline in application scenarios such as urban intelligent sanitation, express delivery, and postal services, which will be assessed by the municipal pilot office.
In Guangzhou, unmanned sanitation vehicles mainly add homework in one south and one north. Starting from 2022, Wenyuan Zhiyan will launch a pilot project for automatic driving of new power for environmental sanitation renovation in Huangpu District. This is the first fully unmanned environmental sanitation vehicle operating under the withering route in China; In the same year, an attempt was made to develop open routes throughout the Nansha District, with the first batch of fleets covering over 50 units.
Han Xu revealed that S1 has “polished its foundation for two years”, including stopping large-scale attempts in densely populated areas such as Guangzhou’s unique urban villages and complex road conditions in residential areas. In the future, S1 also has no hope of entering the central urban area for homework.
“We feel that the path to self driving growth should be from low speed to high speed, from simple to complex, from cargo transportation to human transportation, with a gradual process.” Han Xu estimates that unmanned sanitation vehicles can help businesses increase costs by 30% -40%.
300 billion blue ocean
In the field of environmental sanitation, the shortage of workers and aging population are driving the industry towards unmanned development. The White Paper on the Recent Status of Environmental Sanitation Worker Expenditure in 2020 and the Potential of Replacing Wild Growth with Environmental Sanitation Equipment points out that without the widespread use of intelligent small environmental sanitation equipment, the number of environmental sanitation workers needed in the world could reach 5-5.5 million by 2025.
According to data, the number of sanitation workers in China reached over 2 million in 2022. This also means that the language industry gap may reach up to 3 million. The domestic environmental sanitation industry needs to change the current situation where the ratio of wild machinery is 9:1, and shift towards a 2:1-3:1 ratio of wild machinery in developed countries in Europe and America.
According to the “Research Report on the Track of Autonomous Environmental Sanitation Driving” released by Chentao Resources, the potential market cost of unmanned environmental sanitation vehicles will exceed 300 billion yuan in 2025, which largely represents the waiting value of resources for unmanned environmental sanitation vehicles.
This track has already spread a group of powerful players. There are conservative sanitation enterprises that have fulfilled the formation of the sanitation smart robot homework cluster after the peak loss situation and the Zhonglian situation; The Beijing environmental sanitation group and Apollo have collaborated to pull out 7 unmanned environmental sanitation vehicles, unveiling the entire process of conservative cleaning and upkeep. As well as commercial vehicle companies, Yutong Heavy Industry has successfully entrusted automatic driving washing and sweeping vehicles, and Chunfeng Commercial Vehicles, a subsidiary of Chunfeng Group, has launched pure electric sanitation vehicles.
Unmanned companies have also extended their operations from Robotaxi and Robobus to the sanitation sector. In May 2022, Wenyuan Zhiyan announced the automatic driving environmental sanitation vehicle S6, which has been operating in Guangzhou, Dalian, Shenzhen, Beijing, Zhengzhou and other places.
Previously, the two autonomous driving products under the company have achieved a closed trade loop. In November 2019 and December 2023, Wenyuan Zhiyan successively launched the world’s first Robotaxi and Robobus trade free business services.
Han Xu informed the interface message that, in terms of skills, S1 follows WeRideOne, as well as multi-mode sensors and LiDAR. “Since the sensor modules used have all been verified on previous models, the key to development and verification can be skipped. In terms of data collection, the data collected by Wenyuan’s minibuses, taxis, and freight vehicles is also applicable to environmental sanitation, so it saves a lot of costs.”
According to the introduction, WeRideOne is a self-developed universal platform for autonomous driving skills by Wenyuan Zhiyan. It gathers modular hardware, software, and cloud platforms, which can be quickly applied to different application scenarios and levels of autonomous vehicles, thereby improving algorithm reuse rate and increasing research and development costs.
For sanitation vehicles, based on this foundation, according to the personality of small sanitation equipment, the perception, layout, positioning and other technical details need to stop responding and adapting, such as identifying small objects and debris, achieving precise edge cleaning and other functions.
Increase the number of sensors
S1 and S6 are models with a total weight of 1 ton and 6 tons respectively. S6 mainly stops cleaning on urban main roads, but cannot do homework on pedestrian or narrow roads. Han Xu mentioned that the latter is a more complex scene, with debris deposition and parked vehicles. Vehicles have higher requirements for small object detection and non pressure detection, and need to coordinate cleaning efficiency and opening area.
S1 can adapt to more complex scenarios, including main roads, auxiliary roads, pedestrian walkways, parks, greenways, etc.
According to the different versions, S1 is equipped with 4 to 12 cameras and 2 to 4 LiDARs – in terms of the number of LiDARs, it is higher than many new powerful models that promote intelligent driving. This money has also increased the price.
“The cost is relatively high compared to vehicles that only use cameras, but using cameras for autonomous driving of sanitation or cars cannot achieve pure unmanned performance. The focus of our performance is on using machinery to fill the gap. As human capital continues to rise, the prices of LiDAR and sensors are falling. So as long as the difference in the middle is positive, our actions will be interesting.” Han Xu exaggerates that S1 needs to achieve full non-interference, including unsafe and following personnel.
However, compared to other models, sanitation vehicles belong to the category of low-speed unmanned vehicles, with a speed controlled below 10 kilometers per hour and relatively lower requirements for sensors. “So what we need to do is an optimization result, how to increase the number of sensors and improve the price of sensors as much as possible while ensuring safety,” Han Xu said.
You don’t need to take the paisi
Apart from Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen are relatively at the forefront of the growth of unmanned sanitation vehicles in China.
Since 2018, Shanghai has taken the lead in exploring the use of autonomous driving techniques for trucks, sanitation vehicles, and other vehicles. The “Shanghai Accelerated New Power Vehicle Property Growth Practical Layout (2021-2025)” proposes that the proportion of public enterprises and public institutions’ public vehicles, sanitation vehicles, and new power vehicles is 80% higher.
Starting from 2022, Shenzhen will allow unmanned sanitation vehicles to operate on a limited scale, and from 2023, each district (new area) will select at least one street action pilot to fully mechanized the entire street sanitation task.
Compared to Robotaxi and Robobus, since it does not involve passenger transportation, S1 does not need to take a taxi, nor does it explicitly request to stop road testing. “It is more like a small environmental sanitation measure than a vehicle.”
According to the assumption, authorities, sanitation companies, property companies, parks, and schools are all user profiles of S1. “We are taking a gradually expanding approach, starting with some sanitation services in the areas we previously operated, and then expanding to other regions,” said Han Xu.
The orders for unmanned sanitation vehicles have spread to the G-end, including local authorities and state-owned enterprises. On April 3rd, Wenyuan Zhiyan signed a strategic mutual aid agreement with national level Changxing Economic Development Zone, Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area Robot Property Alliance, Zhengzhou Aolande Situation Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Kaiyun Growth Co., Ltd., Dongguan Binhai Bay New Area Holding Group Co., Ltd. and other mutual aid partners, with an order quality close to tens of millions of US dollars, affecting about hundreds of S1 vehicles.