Baidu Touts Camera-Only System for Autonomous Cars

China’s Baidu Inc. says its new Apollo Lite platform can enable Level 4 autonomous driving with 10 cameras and no radar or lidar.

The system can process vast amounts of data from the cameras to detect objects at distances as great as 700 ft, according to the tech giant. Baidu says it already has tested the technology on public roads in Beijing.

The company also continues to develop its primary Apollo platform, which features a mix of cameras, radar, lidar and ultrasonic sensors. The latest version of that system, Apollo 3.5, was introduced in January. Baidu says Apollo Lite complements the other system, but the company didn’t elaborate on how it planned to differentiate applications for the technologies.

Most carmakers use a similar package—with lidar considered a key enabler for future driverless vehicles—to develop and test prototype systems. One significant exception is Tesla Inc., which specifically decided against using lidar in its controversial Autopilot system.

More than 130 carmakers and other partners are collaborating with Baidu on the open-source Apollo Project. The platform is said to contain more than 400,000 lines of code, which doubles that of an earlier version in January 2018.