Baidu Announces Major Updates to its Apollo Intelligent Driving Platform

Apollo is the world's first open autonomous driving platform designed to accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology.

Baidu says Apollo 3.5 is the most powerful Apollo release to date. It's the first open source autonomous driving platform that allows self-driving cars to navigate complex urban and suburban driving scenarios.

Since launching Apollo in April 2017, Baidu has been regularly updating the platform to include more robust autonomous driving features with each new release.  

The latest Apollo update includes new capabilities, such as the ability to manage unprotected left turns, a challenging maneuver for self-driving cars, as well as slowing for speed bumps, passing, navigating narrow lanes and autonomous parking.

Since its launch, Baidu's open Apollo platform has grown into one of the largest autonomous driving ecosystems in the world. Apollo has over 130 industry partners, including global automakers Daimler, Volvo, Ford and BMW, along with thousands of developers contributing to the Apollo open-source platform.

The new Apollo release unlocks tools for thousands of developers, allowing them to create solutions such as robo-taxis and autonomous delivery services.