Universities want to develop autonomous vehicles

Just tell the car to pick up the child from school – without mom having to get behind the wheel. Such scenarios are a dream so far. No autonomous cars are ready for the market yet.

But many companies are researching it, including google’s sister company waymo, but also the ride service provider uber and german car companies.

Now seven german universities also want to work together with companies over the next four years to develop an autonomously driving electric car. The vehicle is supposed to get by without a steering wheel at all. Herzstuck is the computer that is networked with sensors in the vehicle, sensors in the road and with other vehicles, as the institute for motor vehicles (ika) at RWTH aachen university announced on thursday at the launch of the unicaragil project.

"The vehicle must always be able to transition from safety-critical situations to a safe state without human assistance," said overall coordinator at ika, lutz eckstein, via unicaragil. In situations where the system cannot find a way out – for example, when another car is parked in the second row on the street and a solid line has to be crossed without permission – a traffic controller in a control station has to decide what to do.

The planned safety technology consists of individual modules that can be updated again and again, like an update on a computer. These components had to be tested and not the whole vehicle, so the uberzeugung.

"The design of a safe driving is absolutely in the foreground. That is the basic prerequisite for acceptance by society," says eckstein. According to the latest study by tuv rheinland, car drivers in germany, china and the u.S. Are convinced that traffic safety will decline as automation increases.

The streetscooter electric delivery vehicle has already been developed in aachen, and the post office is now building it for its own delivery staff. The city car e also developed in aachen.Go to go into series production in may.

At the end of unicaragil, four prototypes are to be built: in addition to the family helper, a cab, a delivery vehicle and a shuttle. "We want to create a basis that can be used neutrally by everyone in order to prepare a new standard on how to design such automated vehicles," said eckstein. Whether a car manufacturer will use this template remains to be seen.