Not long ago, Volvo President and CEO Jim Rowan announced the technical highlights of the new generation of pure electric flagship SUV EX90 when revealing Volvo's security vision for the new era, which is equivalent to confirming the existence of the EX90 from the side - although Volvo has not released any pictures of the car officially.

So, what is the virtue of EX90, so that Volvo has high hopes for it? To put it simply, EX90 is an auto robot with autonomous learning ability and autonomous behavior ability under abnormal conditions.

In Volvo's plan, EX90 is the best carrier to carry the vision of "zero casualties" - since EX90, drivers will no longer be seriously injured or killed on Volvo cars in the future.

Research on traffic accidents in various countries shows that all serious traffic accidents that cause death or disability are caused by human factors - lack of awareness and maintenance of vehicles, non-compliance with traffic rules, road rage, drunk driving, drug driving, distraction, fatigue and other factors are the main reasons for serious traffic accidents. Volvo Cars aims to reduce potential safety hazards caused by human activities through technological innovation.

In order to achieve this vision, Volvo EX90 will be equipped with a new safety system that integrates the full stack self-developed software, Luminar lidar and DUS driver perception system.

Volvo is one of the few auto manufacturers with the capability of independent research and development of ADAS. From the integration of system perception, decision-making to control, they all follow the path of independent research. Zenseal, an autonomous driving software development company under Volvo Cars, can provide a full stack of autonomous driving software. Relatively speaking, most brands, especially the new power car manufacturers, are more accustomed to taking the supporting route of "bringing".

The core of Volvo's so-called full stack self-developed software is actually a central computing architecture called "world tree". According to Volvo, this computing architecture will break the barriers between various functional domains, achieve full integration of all functions in the car, and achieve self-development through independent learning and OTA online upgrading.

In terms of hardware, according to Luo Wenjin, EX90 will be equipped with the most advanced 1550 nanometer wavelength laser radar of Luminar as standard. With a reflectivity of only 10%, it can achieve a detection distance of 250 meters - when the vehicle is traveling on the expressway at a speed of 120 km/h, 250 meters represents 7.5 seconds

The lidar can identify tires on the ground 120 meters away or pedestrians 250 meters away. The EX90's lidar system will work with 5 body radars, 8 cameras and 16 ultrasonic sensors. However, one thing to say, the detection range of this system will be significantly higher in the daytime than at night. The reason is simple. Thanks to the fusion algorithm of the central computing architecture, the lidar can obtain the BUFF bonus of the camera in the daytime; In the low light environment at night, the camera is not very useful.

The addition of this lidar system is expected to reduce the number of major casualties of Volvo cars by 20%.

At present, among the new energy vehicles on the market, in addition to the Weilai ES7, even the Xiaopeng G9 and the ideal L9 just launched have not chosen the 1550 nm wavelength laser radar for cost reasons, but the 905 nm wavelength radar with lower detection and recognition accuracy.

So it can be seen that the so-called "software decides the car" is actually a paradox. In the end, what we are still fighting for is hardware?

In the future, with the help of lidar and other sensing systems, Volvo Cars can achieve highly automatic driving without supervision, especially in the case of traffic congestion, which can greatly reduce the fatigue of drivers. It is reported that Volvo Cars' unsupervised and highly automatic driving function, Ride Pilot, will first be launched in California, the United States, and will gradually be launched globally if laws and regulations permit. In addition, Ride Pilot can even allow drivers to read, entertain, socialize and other activities in the car when laws and regulations allow.

EX90 will also be equipped with DUS dual camera driver awareness system as standard - this is the only driver awareness system equipped with dual camera in the world at present. The system consists of a capacitive steering wheel and two cameras. By collecting driver status information and integrating it with intelligent driving algorithm, the system can not only distinguish the driver's distracted, sleepy or even drunk status, but also judge the driver's mood.

When it is detected that the driver's attention is no longer focused on driving and needs to provide support, the system will automatically take over the driving, and adopt actions such as reducing the speed, slowly stopping in the lane and automatically flashing, to ensure the safety of the driver, so as to avoid more serious secondary traffic accidents.

To be honest, in terms of the accumulation of automatic driving technology, Volvo is no less powerful than any new car maker; However, Volvo is more active than any other new force in the field of safety technology breakthrough.

So, look forward to the counterattack of EX90 against the new forces of car making!