Driver & Vehicle Guidance
Vision of the future
Driver assistance systems already contribute significantly to comfort, security, and energy efficiency. Intelligent systems register driving conditions and do not only advise the driver, but also actively intervene based on the data. A vehicle is, for example, actively led back into the lane when the car swerves out of the lane unintentionally; the side-wind assistant makes sure the car drives straight, even in conditions of fierce and sudden shear forces. Cruise control influences the gas and brake controls for more comfort; additional security is provided by the emergency brake assist.
To accomplish these tasks, our scientists concern themselves with the integration of cameras, as well as radar and ultrasonic sensors that allow for increasingly all-encompassing peripheral mapping: upcoming types of Car-2-X communication and swarm intelligence can, together with systems still to be developed in the future, make a considerable contribution in the development from assisted towards autonomous driving.
Our research and industry-related projects also take societal challenges and upcoming business models into consideration. The car as property will increasingly lose its relevance. Autonomous taxi and rental vehicles will be integrated into traffic in the near future. They pick up the passenger, drive him/her to the desired destination, offload him/her, perform a self-diagnosis, and - if need be - service work such as reloading and being integrated into a network with similar vehicles to take up the next task intelligently. Soon, in the transportation of goods and people, highly automated and - in the future - autonomous vehicles will intelligently combine themselves into single units with a similar route at a similar time. Today's niche applications will soon dominate our streetscapes.
Competence and infrastructure
Out of the breadth of those projects and initiatives already implemented, as well as in-house research initiatives, testing facilities for complete vehicles (cars and trucks), and vehicle systems, and components for acoustic, longevity, or hardware-in-the-loop tests have been developed (see image). The Campus Ost offers a finished development and testing compound for, amongst other things, the construction and testing of demonstrators. Here is the current “car fleet” of the partners with Annieway, Bertha 1 and CoCar.
Pictured: Testing grounds, e-machines test rig, autonomous vehicle, HiL test set-up
Areas of research
We research new algorithms in image analysis and scenario comprehension. This will enable optimised environmental mapping. To process the large volume of amassed data (“Big Data”), increasingly better integrated and parallelised EE-topologies and HW architectures are emerging which are rising ever more to the challenges that an interconnected embedded system poses regarding robustness, data security, and failure/transmitting security.
Our researching of methods and algorithms for cognitive driving and new parameter identification and estimation procedures through the (auto-)calibration of sensors or dynamic dimensions allows for anticipatory driving. Particularly, the mechanical situational understanding and mechanical learning in applied contexts are further promising directions of research.
Innovative processes and methods of evaluation and validation of cognitive vehicles make developing the aforementioned applications and the conception of new developments and services in mobility easier. They are crucial in regard to the implementation and secure application. Consequently, we collaborate in the development of new methods and the standardisation of secure data transfer (“security”) and thereby enable the comprehensive interconnection of vehicles /Car-2-x) for the purpose of reciprocal use of information (swarm intelligence).
Affiliated Institutes:
ITIV Institute for Information Processing Technologies (Prof. Sax)
MRT Institute for Measurement and Control Technology (Prof. Stiller)
IRS Institute for Control and Regulations Systems (Prof. Hohmann)
ITE Institute of Systems Optimisation (Prof. Trommer)
IFA Institute for Anthropomatics (Prof. Schulz, Dillmann, Beyerer)
ITI Institute for Theoretical Informatics - Chair Algorithmics I (Prof. Wagner)
ITM Institute for Telematics — Research Group Decentralised Systems and Network Services (Prof. Hartenstein)
IFAB Institute for Labour Sciences and Company Organisation (Prof. Deml)
AIA Institute for applied Informatics / Automatisation Technology (Prof. Hagenmeyer)