Where Commuting Meets Computing - City Navigation Guided Pilot Hits China’s roads - XPENG's VP of Autonomous Driving Dr. Xinzhou Wu

Leading Chinese EV manufacturer, XPENG, made ripples in September, 2022, when it launched its pilot programme City Navigation Guided Pilot (City NGP). The launch makes XPENG the first Chinese mobility company to run such high-level Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) functions for complex urban driving scenarios on the roads today.

To find out more about this new development, Auto Futures caught up with Dr. Xinzhou Wu, Vice President of Autonomous Driving at XPENG.

“XPILOT is XPENG's Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), leveraging an industry-leading multi-sensor fusion platform for assisted driving, with a wealth of best-in-class intelligent features," says Dr. Wu.

“XPILOT is currently available in three versions: 2.5, 3.0 and 3.5. The XPILOT 3.5 is a world-leading smart driving assistance architecture, which is designed to deliver maximum driver assistance and convenience, helping to navigate through various driving scenarios including in parking lots, highways and complex urban areas."

At the hardware level, XPILOT 3.5 is implemented with LiDAR, while at the software level, XPILOT 3.5 operates City NGP supported by the Xmart OS 3.3.0. 

“XPENG's proprietary Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) will also include other advanced driver assistance functions besides the City NGP. Ultra-low-speed driving scenario (when parking) is handled by the system's Valet Parking Assist (VPA) feature and Highway NGP is dedicated to the high-speed scenario. Together with City NGP, these functions can tackle 90% of situations occurring on a journey." he adds.

XPILOT can be continuously enhanced through over-the-air (OTA) upgrades. More ADAS functions will be introduced in the future.

in 2022, a fleet of XPENG P7 completed an eight-day driving expedition on a route from Guangzhou to Beijing, setting the record for the longest autonomous drive using NGP. No less than 2,930km of the 3,600km journey was undertaken on highways under the control of the Highway NGP.

As Dr. Wu confirms, it is China's longest-ever autonomous driving expedition by a mass-produced vehicle.

Among the key functions that were monitored during the expedition were lane changing and overtaking (a 94.41% success rate), entering and exiting the highway (92.76%) and negotiating tunnels (94.95%). The P7's autonomous driving is enabled by a navigation-assisted system based on the route programmed by the driver and is available on highways covered by high-precision maps in China.

The P7's autonomous driving hardware is equipped with a powerful system and comprises 14 cameras, five millimetre-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, centimetre-level high-definition positioning, decimetre-level high-definition mapping, all supported by Nvidia Xavier system-on-the-chip.

“The feat illustrates XPENG's position as a major player in the fiercely competitive self-driving market,” says Dr. Wu.

Meeting the Daily Commuting Needs of Drivers

The City NGP pilot is testament to the fact that advanced mobility solutions aren’t just all theory, they’re already out on the roads for the world to see.

To help better demonstrate some real-world use cases for this technology, Dr. Wu says: “City NGP requires high precision maps as the enabler and can therefore be used on most roads commonly used for commuting in major Chinese cities/tier one cities in China, including major urban expressways, main roads, some secondary roads, and side roads. Complex road manoeuvres like U-turns, roundabouts, tunnels and lane merging with all types of unexpected vehicles or pedestrians, can also be handled intelligently by City NGP. It is a NGP that can meet the daily commuting needs of most drivers.”

“Not all competitors have launched their version of City NGP in the Chinese market, and for some this is still a way off,” he added, speaking about how XPENG’s technology stacks up against competition.

“At XPENG we remain focused on the improvement of our own ADAS. As a Chinese company, XPENG is more familiar with China's complex road conditions, China's social traffic environment, and China's driving habits, which puts us in a competitive position to lead the development of L4-benchmarking ADAS systems in China," he explains.

XPENG says it welcomes all EV manufacturers to actively participate in the construction of intelligent transportation, to work together, and progress together. 

City NGP function can be deployed on XPENG vehicles which are equipped with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) remote sensing technology.

“City NGP is implemented on the Premium Version of the XPENG P5 sedan in China. The P5 is the first mass-production model in China to be equipped with LiDAR remote sensing technology. The City NGP will require support by the XPILOT 3.5 ADAS system. Furthermore, XPENG delivers the full-scenario ADAS on its new flagship G9 SUV, the fourth production model just launched in China on September 21,” he says.

“XPENG is committed to full-stack in-house innovative engineering. XPILOT is a proprietary ADAS system with deep integration of not only the software systems but also the hardware, which can only be implemented based on the fundamental architecture of the XPENG car models at this phase.”

A Safety-First Approach to Rolling Out City NGP

The City NGP pilot will have to work with the increased complexities that come with an urban road setting. When asked what challenges this would pose to XPENG, Dr. Wu answered that there are two – network and road conditions.

“The operation of City NGP is affected by the network connection to some extent. But according to our test results, it only has a small impact and will not affect its operation in most cases. However, in places where the network signal continues to be poor for a long time, the function may be downgraded to LCC or the driver may be prompted to take control of the vehicle manually for security reasons.” 

Speaking about road conditions, he says: “It depends on the situation. For road conditions that make it difficult to apply assisted driving mode, City NGP will prompt the user to drive manually. If the enhanced version of LCC can be safely operated on the road, it will be applied in this scenario.”

China has recently released the first national draft guideline on the use of self-driving vehicles for public transport, and City NGP is actively complying with relevant laws and regulations during its operation to ensure safety at all times. As City NGP is not equal to fully autonomous driving drivers will still need to be aware of road conditions and their surroundings and be prepared to intervene if required.

To ensure sufficient knowledge of safety procedures, City NGP requires a seven-day familiarisation period - and 100 km of driving - before its functions can be used on all available roads. 

Finally, we arrive at the one pressing question that’s probably on many people’s minds right now - when can we expect to see XPENG’s City NGP being deployed in mass-produced cars?

“As a part of XPILOT 3.5, City NGP was first made available to a cohort of customers with the Premium Version of XPENG P5 from 17 September 2022. With the OTA schedled in the week commencing 17 October, XPENG will roll out the City NGP function to all Premium Version P5 users in Guangzhou,” Dr. Wu replies.