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BMW news
BMW LAUNCHES PILOT PROJECT FOR IN-PLANT DRIVERLESS MOBILITY
The BMW Group today launched a new project that will see cars manoeuvre around production without requiring a driver. The Automated Driving In-Plant project (‘Automatisiertes Fahren im Werk’, (AFW) is being realised in collaboration with two startups – Seoul Robotics from South Korea, and Embotech from Switzerland, and will enhance the efficiency of new-vehicle logistics in plants and distribution centres.
The aim of the AFW pilot project is for vehicles to move autonomously around logistics areas and assembly, safely, efficiently and without requiring a driver.
Launched at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing, the new system will first be trialled on two cars: the new BMW 7 Series and the fully electric BMW i7. The pilot project will run for several months. Later it will be rolled out further, initially on additional models at Plant Dingolfing and later in other plants as well.
“Automated driving within the plant is fundamentally different from autonomous driving for customers. It doesn’t use sensors in the vehicle. In fact, the car itself is more or less blind and the sensors for manoeuvring them are integrated along the route through the plant,” Sascha Andree, Project Manager, BMW Group, said.
AFW builds on two key technologies: a sensor infrastructure to support vehicle localisation and detect obstacles in the plant environment, and a drive-planning software that transmits controlled commands to the driverless vehicles via mobile communications.
Initially, the vehicles will only move through the assembly area and then to logistics. Fresh off the production line, they will drive themselves to a parking area, ready for their onward journey by train or truck. Essentially, the technology can be used from the moment the cars are capable of driving independently in production – just after the first ignition of the engine, in other words.
“This collaboration, with two young startups and an OEM like the BMW Group working together on a single project, is probably the first of its kind,” Lee, CEO, Seoul Robotics, said.
“Without the BMW Startup Garage, we would never have been able to evaluate and test our solution,” Alexander Domahidi, co-founder and CTO, Embotech, said.
Automated Driving In-Plant is just one of many success stories by the BMW Startup Garage. The BMW Startup Garage has successfully carried out more than 150 pilot projects with leading startups with this approach, with a cumulative investment volume of more than USD 4.5 billion.
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