At the first day of CES, Baidu has announced the second version of its Apollo an open autonomous driving platform. The earlier version Apollo 1.0, was unveiled in July 2017. Apollo 2.0 allow users of Apollo 1.0 to drive autonomously on some simple city roads.
Baidu’s Apollo program is an open source framework conceived to help developers push self-driving car tech forward. Some of the highlights of version 2.0 include more HD mapping services, new cheaper sensor package requirements. New reference vehicles, and support for Intel, NXP, Nvidia and Renesas are the other advantages.
The Apollo 2.0 release comes hot on the heels of Baidu’s partnership with Canadian firm BlackBerry and the adoption of its QNX system as a critical part of Apollo’s architecture. One of Baidu’s US-based partners, AutonomouStuff, has already updated from 1.0 to 2.0 and has said that the update allowed their test vehicles to operate during both day and night on urban streets.
