Jeremy Bass•3 Apr 2013
NEWS
BMW, Continental embark on vehicle automation project
German pair anticipates low-speed stop/go by 2016, freeway speed autonomy by 2020, full hands-free by 2025BMW and German auto components giant Continental have announced a joint technology R&D venture set to produce cars capable of “highly autonomous” freeway driving by 2020, extending to full autonomy (hands-free driving) by 2025.
The Financial Times reports the “electronic co-pilot” on which the two companies are working should be good for semi-automated “stop and go” driving at speeds of up to 30kph as early as 2016.
The package will combine BMW’s TrackTrainer and Emergency Stop Assistant technologies with Continental's sensors and backup systems, the latter designed to keep the vehicle safe should the primary technologies malfunction.
With around 1300 people deployed in the area of vehicle automation, Continental (yes, the tyre company but they do far more than just tyres), is already well established in the field, having furnished Daimler with elements of the emergency brake assist and Distronic adaptive cruise systems used in Mercedes-Benz models. It was also one of the first to jump on legislated permission to test vehicle autonomy systems on Nevada’s roads, where it has now chalked up more than 24,000km of test driving since early 2012.
BMW’s Research and Technology division introduced TrackTrainer in the early 2000s as a race driver training system. Installed in a modified 3 Series, it was used to show students the optimal race lines around half a dozen tracks including the Nürburgring, Valencia and Laguna Seca.
Gizmag reports that the joint project’s initial development phase will run from early 2013 to late 2014, by which time a small fleet of prototype vehicles will be ready for testing on autobahns and motorways across Europe. The project will include training drivers to test automated functions through day-to-day driving conditions incorporating permanent fixtures like toll stations, intersections and national borders, and temporary aberrations like roadworks. For the latter, it will leverage Conti’s work in the EU-wide HAVEit project, for which it developed systems capable of negotiating such temporary hold-ups and changes to road conditions.
While they maintain their marketing focus on safety factors, Conti and other players in the fast-growing vehicle automation sector aren’t oblivious to anxieties about how much agency such technologies remove from drivers. It’s an age-old issue going back to the 1950s, when test pilots ordained as astronauts for NASA’s Mercury space program found themselves reduced from all-controlling top guns to “spam in a can”.
“Automated systems can increase road safety many times and therefore save lives. We are familiar with this in the aviation industry,” Continental CEO Elmar Degenhart told media in a statement. “Automated driving will certainly not lead to the frequently evoked disempowerment of drivers, any more than it did for pilots.”
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Written byJeremy Bass
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