Daily Management Review

Daimler and Robert Bosch to create a self-driving car


04/04/2017


German concern Daimler AG and Robert Bosch company announced beginning of cooperation on development of a fully autonomous control system for cars.



Pjt56
Pjt56
The companies expect that their system will increase safety on the roads, and also consider it as an alternative to a taxi.

Daimler and Robert Bosch are planning to focus on creating an automatic system of conditional fourth level, allowing a driver to entrust control over the car to the computer, intervening only in exceptional cases. In the future, they expect to develop a completely autonomous algorithm of the fifth level, not involving mandatory interference in the process of driving. It is expected that these developments will be used on the roads already "by the beginning of the next decade."

"The primary goal of this project is to develop a control system ready for production that would allow cars to move autonomously around the city. Among other things, this technology will make the idea of car-sharing much more attractive, the companies explain. "The idea is that a car should go to a person, and not vice versa." According to idea of the project’s authors, users will be able to call cars using smartphones in certain areas of the city. Thanks to the autonomous control system, a car will drive to the specified point and, picking up passengers, will continue to move in the same mode to the destination.

"By introducing fully automated and unmanned vehicles, Bosch and Daimler are seeking to optimize urban traffic, improve road safety and lay an important foundation for the concept of road traffic of the future", the joint statement said. 

The concept of fully unmanned vehicles has been discussed for a number of years in offices of major automakers and on pages of the world media. Projects to create autonomous control systems are already being implemented by several companies, including American Tesla and Lyft. 

The latter, in particular, entered into an agreement with General Motors, which invested $ 500 million to test unmanned electric vehicles on US roads. One of the largest players in the taxi market, American company Uber, is testing models developed by Ford and Volvo corporations. In July last year, the German automaker BMW signed an agreement with Intel and Mobileye on the joint development of self-governing vehicles, announcing its intention to release the first full-fledged "drone" on the roads by 2021. 

source: sbs.com.au