Vehicle mounted LiDAR presents authoritative reports, Shanghai's "ruler" fills the gap, allowing the snow in the north and south to test | measure | LiDAR
The first commercial flight of the C919 aircraft, designed by the Chinese themselves, was a complete success. Behind this dazzling global wisdom, a "ruler" from Shanghai played a crucial role.
The hundreds of thousands of components of C919 come from all over the world, and they need to be assembled perfectly, especially for large components, which cannot be separated from large-scale measurement equipment such as laser scanners, laser trackers, and large profilers.
Previously, due to the limitations of domestic technological level, regular calibration of these devices had to be carried out abroad, which was time-consuming and costly. Shanghai's relevant institutions and enterprises have joined hands to tackle the problem of the inability to trace the measurement values of oversized geometric measuring instruments in China by creating "rulers" at their doorstep.
Starting from this, more high-precision and cutting-edge "rulers" have been localized in Shanghai. After the establishment of the National Commercial Aircraft Industry Metrology and Testing Center in Shanghai, it has overcome the challenges of multi parameter and online calibration technology in large-scale testing systems one by one.
The "measured, fully measured, accurately measured, and quickly measured" of commercial aircraft is a microcosm of the high-quality development of Shanghai's metrology support industry.
The latest data released by the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation shows that Shanghai has cultivated and built five national industrial measurement and testing centers, including nuclear power instruments, commercial aircraft, intelligent connected vehicles, civil aviation engines, and marine power equipment. It has approved the establishment of six municipal industrial measurement and testing centers, directly providing measurement and testing technology support and services for major projects and projects including "Shanghai Light Source", "Hualong 1", and Beidou Satellite, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality development of new track industries such as digital economy, green and low-carbon, metaverse, and intelligent terminals.
The development prospects of the autonomous driving industry largely depend on the quality of the sensors, and whether the performance of the sensors can pass the test platform verification.
The performance testing of LiDAR is often conducted outdoors in open areas. The changing atmospheric environment causes varying degrees of atmospheric attenuation in the laser beam emitted by LiDAR, resulting in inaccurate measurement results and poor testing repeatability.
Looking back five years ago, this was a major pain point in the automotive LiDAR industry, and at that time, public standard testing platforms in related fields were still blank in China.
"The same product, the first test was windy and rainy, the second test was sunny... Without a stable test environment, there would be no reliable test results, and it was difficult for customers to trust the report." A customer contacted many years ago has impressed Jiang Nanyi, director of smart marketing of Liangdao. It was hard to wait for snow in the north, and when we got the test report, we were asked to test it again in their presence, for good reasons: "The snow in the south is different from that in the north!"
Repeated testing significantly increases costs and further traps limited and valuable technical personnel. The National Intelligent Connected Vehicle Industry Metrology and Testing Center, which was under construction at the time, filled the gap in target detection performance testing in domestic vehicle mounted LiDAR laboratories and injected a boost into LiDAR enterprises.
Vehicle-mounted LiDAR Test Darkroom Photo by Chen Xi Han
Technology is constantly advancing, and related policies, standards, and supporting facilities are inevitably lagging behind objectively. The speed of catching up with the gap is related to the life of emerging industries and also a reflection of the comprehensive strength of cities.
Shen Yafei, Deputy Director of the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle Industry Measurement and Testing Center, sighed that this "only" settlement in Shanghai is not accidental. On the one hand, it is because Shanghai, represented by the Yangtze River Delta region, has a profound automotive industry background and is one of the earliest regions in China's intelligent connected vehicle industry to start. On the other hand, because Shanghai is also the "cradle" of a large number of related research and development institutions and startups, "problems can be detected and solved as quickly as possible here with sufficient conditions.".
When the center was officially unveiled in May this year, it had already built 264 measurement and testing technology capabilities, 148 measurement and calibration technology capabilities in the field of intelligent connected vehicles, and participated in the formulation of 186 standards or technical specifications, obtaining 137 intellectual property rights.
Massive innovation is still the crystallization of industrial chain cooperation. Liangdao Intelligence leverages its algorithmic advantages and collaborates with the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle Industry Measurement and Testing Center to improve the efficiency of evaluating the perception ability of LiDAR to just a few minutes before producing a report.
With the help of high-precision "rulers", in addition to solving the problem of "being able to measure", it can also solve the problem of "measuring quickly or not".
How long will it take to insert the inner diameter gauge into over 10000 deep holes with a diameter of over ten millimeters one by one, holding it in your hand? Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group was once concerned about the efficient measurement of the inner diameter value and defect location of the deep hole in the steam generator tube plate of the main nuclear power equipment.
The "Industrial Metrology Cloud" jointly promoted by the market supervision departments of the three provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta has brought joy to engineers.
"After the demand was issued, customized solutions quickly appeared on the platform, including those that rely on high-speed robotic arms for automatic detection and those that use laser technology. We are comparing and evaluating them," said Liu Chang, an engineer at the Technical Development Department of Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group. "There is a plan to compress the measurement time from a few working days of pure manual labor to about 20 minutes, and the measurement coverage is wider and the results are more accurate, which can significantly reduce costs and increase efficiency for enterprises.".
Figure provided by interviewee for tube sheet inner diameter measurement system under test
"The main purpose of building the 'Industrial Metrology Cloud' is to strengthen the integration of various resources upstream and downstream of the industry, solve the problem of information asymmetry, and promote the independent development and innovation of key core technology capabilities." Tian Yilong, Deputy Director of the Metrology Department of the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision Bureau, said that the 'Industrial Metrology Cloud' currently has nearly 50 metrology institutions, including 13 national level industrial metrology testing centers and 20 provincial level industrial metrology testing centers, with nearly 500 metrology service projects.
Last year, the platform obtained a total of 56 listing requirements from enterprises, covering high-end equipment, automobiles, biopharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence fields. 29 requirements were matched with 42 solutions submitted by 16 service agencies.
