Automatic driving is about to enter the L3/L4 era, how can vehicle safety performance be further improved? Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued a document, officially specifying the requirements for the access standards of L3/L4 automatic driving, and improving the relevant rules, which also means that L3/L4 automatic driving is about to be implemented. The impending implementation of L3/L4 automatic driving has once again sparked people’s thoughts on the safety performance of automatic driving vehicles. Currently, the industry’s thinking on the safety of automatic driving mainly focuses on the perception of front-end sensors and the decision-making of back-end computing power, with the front-end sensors mainly focusing on the performance of lidar and cameras. However, apart from the performance of the sensors themselves, lidar and cameras also have a significant drawback – they are easily affected by external environmental factors such as mud, sand, rain, and snow, leading to a decrease in sensor performance or even failure. In response to this problem, some players in the industry have proposed intelligent driving sensor cleaning system solutions, with Kaitech being a typical representative. In order to ensure the all-weather and all-scenario availability of automatic driving sensors, Kaitech has developed the Allegro automatic driving vision cleaning system.
Kaitai Plastic Technology Co., Ltd. Kaitai’s Allegro intelligent driving cleaning system includes visible static cleaning nozzles, retractable cleaning nozzles, automatic driving dedicated cleaning water pumps, uninterrupted level sensors, and hardware equipment such as flow control valves; as well as an invisible intelligent control communication unit for automatic driving cleaning, used to efficiently clean cameras, radars, sensors, and other information collection units under different weather conditions and vehicle movement states.
Allegro Intelligent Driving Cleaning System Intelligent adjustment of cleaning parameters to create a full-scene intelligent cleaning solution The biggest advantage of the Allegro Intelligent Driving Cleaning System is the ability to intelligently control cleaning strategies and set corresponding cleaning parameters for different scenarios, flexibly handling various complex scenarios and improving cleaning performance. In fact, most sensor cleaning systems in the industry can meet the cleaning needs of vehicles in a stationary state. The real challenge is efficient cleaning in high-speed scenarios. The cleaning cycle of a typical sensor cleaning system at a speed of 120 km/h will be more than twice that of a stationary state, which is also the difficulty faced by ordinary sensor cleaning systems.
Allegro’s intelligent driving cleaning system includes an automatic driving cleaning intelligent control communication unit that can convert information about various weather conditions, dirt conditions, and vehicle motion states to the automatic driving intelligent control communication unit to control the cleaning strategy of the cleaning system, keeping the cleaning cycle in high-speed scenarios consistent with static scenarios. The coordination of hardware and software is crucial for road condition data. In addition to intelligently setting cleaning parameters, Allegro’s intelligent control module also supports the priority of cleaning requests, parallel cleaning coordination, actuator control, and diagnosis of multiple functions.
Allegro intelligent control cleaning strategy For example, when a vehicle is driving, the rear window and the roof radar send cleaning requests at the same time, the Allegro intelligent control module can make more human-like judgments, that is, to clean the roof radar first, which can better ensure the safety of the vehicle during the driving process. In addition, Allegro’s intelligent driving cleaning system has also put a lot of effort into hardware. In general, the position and pressure of the nozzles will affect the cleaning effect. Especially when the vehicle is in different driving states, the influence of the nozzle pressure is greater. Under the condition that the nozzle position remains unchanged, the pressure of the Allegro nozzle can be recalibrated according to the vehicle speed, and ultimately effectively clean the sensor. It should be pointed out that as one of the earliest manufacturers of automatic driving sensor cleaning systems, Kautais has also faced many difficulties in the development of intelligent driving cleaning systems, especially in the early stage of development, it was basically difficult to find successful cases that could be used for reference in the market, such as the parameters of the cleaning system. In different environmental temperatures, sensor installation positions, and parameter differences under driving speeds, it is very difficult to design a system suitable for various road conditions and efficient. For this reason, Kautais has developed the AllegroTM dynamic environment simulation platform for researching the best cleaning parameters and strategies. This platform can best restore the actual operation conditions of the vehicle, simulate the installation positions of vehicle sensors and cleaning actuators, maximize the impact of the surrounding environment on parameter settings, and observe and record various cleaning parameters over time, including pressure, temperature, flow rate, etc., and then enrich various cleaning methods. Through repeated simulated tests, the corresponding cleaning parameters for various operating conditions are summarized, organized, and optimized into data strategies for use by the Allegro intelligent control module during the operation of autonomous driving. With a history of over fifty years, Kautex has been designated by multiple car manufacturers. As a globally renowned automotive component supplier, Kautex has a presence in 13 countries, with over 30 production bases in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Its innovative technology includes a complete set of cleaning systems for windshields, headlights, as well as sensors for autonomous driving such as radars and cameras, utilizing water and air cleaning systems. In 1969, Kautex established a factory in the UK for its vision cleaning system, and began supplying it to the global market in 1970. In the 1990s, with the introduction of xenon headlights, Kautex developed a headlight cleaning system. Over the past decade, with the continuous development of intelligent vehicles, Kautex has been committed to the development of intelligent driving sensor cleaning systems. In 2022, Kautex’s intelligent driving cleaning solution Allegro received the 2022 Automotive Innovation Award jointly presented by the German Association of the Automotive Industry and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kautex has established a trustworthy cooperation with customers for a long time, providing high-quality services to Chinese domestic brand car manufacturers, as well as Japanese and European car manufacturers, offering cleaning solutions for autonomous driving from L1 to L5 levels. It is understood that Kautex is currently developing L4 level autonomous driving cleaning solutions with some well-known car manufacturers, providing over 20 cleaning points for the entire vehicle, including complete cleaning systems with both water and air cleaning methods, and has already secured multiple project designations.