China used a lot of cars and self-driving vehicles in all its forms in order to reduce friction between human elements and maintain social divergence to confront the COVID-19 virus, especially in hospitals and health facilities, and new technologies based on self-driving cars appeared to deliver goods and food to homes without driver in all sectors Huge Chinese community, relying on trained robots with a huge store of data.
Use of self-driving vehicles in hospitals
China managed to get out of the general closure imposed by Corona early, and was the first country to control the pandemic due to the adoption of technical solutions based on artificial intelligence and the adoption of the idea of smart cities, and self-driving cars contributed to transporting medical supplies, protection equipment and food between hospitals and affected areas, and floors were sterilized. Hospital surfaces, using special robots, are automated and Corona cannot transfer to.
What is Baidu's role in the recent crisis?
Large companies have supported smart plans to eradicate the epidemic, as Baidu, known for its artificial intelligence solutions and self-driving cars, has stood on the first line of defense on the front lines of Corona, making China a role model in employing advanced computing in the face of epidemics on a wide spread scale.
Baidu has driven more than 100 fully self-driving cars in 17 Chinese cities to transport disinfectants and logistical equipment with the help of other Chinese companies, and the company's autonomous platform called Apollo has contracted Neolix, a local emerging company in the same field, to deliver food and supplies daily to a hospital. Beijing Haidian Hospital, which has more than 100 workers, is treating increasing numbers of patients on the first lines of defense.
Close cooperation between Chinese companies
Apollo and Neolex deployed driverless vehicles to sterilize all roads on the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Island or Shanghai Zhangjiang Artificial Intelligence Island in just half an hour, and a single vehicle can carry 160 liters of disinfectants that are sprayed to the entire road surface three times per day, in addition to a monitoring mission Quarantine and protective equipment, such as sending alerts to command centers when seeing a crowd or when distinguishing a person who does not wear a protective mask.
Baidu’s Apollo, in cooperation with iDriverPlus, provided free-driving vehicles to service 16 hospitals free of charge in China, and a car or two was installed for delivery and sterilization in each hospital to reduce interpersonal protection to protect medical personnel from infection, thus serving huge medical centers such as Huashan Hospital The Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University in addition to the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital of Fudan University and others, and Apollo made its platform for smart mechanisms and small low-speed cars free of charge to all companies operating in Corona face.
Future plans for self-driving public transport
We note the Chinese Baidu focus on sterilization and delivery without transporting passengers, in order to reduce the spread of the disease in the previous period, but focuses in its future plans on integrating its technologies in public transport services, as it started already on April 19 last 2020 to operate its new service Baidu Apollo Robotaxi in Changsha The capital of Hunan Province, the new service allows passenger transportation between residential, recreational, industrial and commercial areas in an area of more than 130 square kilometers.
China has worked to support the establishment of advanced infrastructures supported by advanced technologies to meet the challenges of the Corona virus early this year 2020, and has developed data centers for autonomous vehicles and the development of 5G networks and spread them across the country to provide communication between vehicles and control centers.
Author: Narooht