A self-driving car is being tested in Jiading district, Shanghai. Photo: IC

China's first test zone for autonomous driving vehicles with six practical applicable scenarios, including a residential community, industrial zone, campus, scenic spot, commercial zone and urban area, opened in Shanghai on Saturday, with the aim of speeding up the development of the intelligent connected vehicle industry in Shanghai and nationwide. 

The newly opened test zone in Fengxian district will serve as the country's first multi-scenario testing zone covering various kinds of locations, simulating all kinds of risks and will be applicable to all kinds of vehicles, Shanghai Observer reported on Saturday. 

The test area provides a 1.11-kilometer large-scale underground garage test venue. Using equipment including cameras and sensors together with 5G, artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing and fog computing technologies, driverless vehicles are able to park in the spaces accurately. 

This applicable scenario will solve the previous problems of domestic driverless vehicles failing to automatically operate in underground garages as they could not accurately position and navigate. 

Driverless parking is expected to be first realized in industrial zones and underground parking lots of office buildings. 

With the upgrading of software, the testing scenarios can be applied to both high-end and low-end driverless vehicles. 

Autopilot open test areas are an indispensable test platform for the research and development of intelligent connected vehicles. Over 70 test zones for driverless vehicles have been established across the country, most of which focus on road testing, according to Shanghai Observer. 

The National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Shanghai) Pilot Zone in Jiading district and the Shanghai Lingang Autonomous and Informationalized Vehicle Integrative Testing and Demonstration Zone in Pudong New Area, Shanghai's two existing test zones for driverless vehicle testing, also focus solely on tests of passenger and commercial types of vehicles, rather than their applicable scenarios.