BMW relies on unmanned vehicles

BMW has joined the development of fully automated passenger cars. Google is leading the way in this development, but automakers have all the necessary resources to catch up and overtake the leader. BMW management has set a goal to create fully autonomous vehicle control systems until 2025.

Recently, BMW, together with Continental, announced a research project for 2013-2014 , within which a number of prototype technical systems for unmanned vehicles will be created.

In subsequent years, these prototypes will be tested and brought to the stage of industrial designs. The tests are planned to be carried out on the roads of Germany and other European countries in order to test the operation of the systems in typical problem situations, such as intersections, toll roads, crossing national borders.
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The plan is this: by 2016, separate autonomous systems will be ready. By 2020 - a highly automated prototype that can independently drive on certain sections of the road. By 2025, a completely autonomous BMW robot should be created that can drive in all areas without requiring a person inside the vehicle.



According to Google , the start of sales of unmanned vehicles will lead to three revolutionary changes in the market.

1. Reducing the number of traffic accidents by 90%.
2. Reducing the cost of time and fuel in transit by 90%.
3. Reducing the number of cars by 90% .

One of the changes is a cardinal decrease in sales of new cars. It would be natural if the traditional automakers tried to resist the coming changes, ignoring the technical revolution. It is surprisingly good that the BMW group is devoting its strength to the development of autonomous cars in the shortest possible time.

Explaining his decision, BMW first of all mentions the Vision Zero project (Accident-Free Mobility). When switching to computer control, you can significantly reduce the number of accidents.

BMW emphasizes that in the past ten years it has developed a range of technical solutions that fit into the concept of fully autonomous cars. Investigations were also carried out in the framework of the projects of the BMW TrackTrainer and Emergency Stop Assistant.

For example, the TrackTrainer system made it possible to conduct a race car on the track along an optimal trajectory, based only on readings from video cameras, GPS, and a high-precision digital track map. Field tests successfully conducted on October 21, 2009 at the old Nurburgring ring (in the North Loop, 22.8 km long). In May 2011, a demonstration took place on the American highway Laguna Seca in California, which is famous for elevation differences of 91 meters, numerous ascents and descents.

In mid-2011, BMW Group Research and Technology tested the autopilot on the A9 motorway between Munich and Nuremberg, without intersections and traffic lights. The automobile prototype itself accelerated, slowed down and kept a distance with other cars on the road, driving all the way without human participation, without ever breaking the traffic rules (on video)



Since then, the prototype has already overcome 10 thousand km . A computerized control system has been developed for it, which includes a lidar, ultrasonic sensors, and 360-degree video cameras. Externally, the car is almost no different from the serial. Just looking closely, you can see the camera behind the windshield, the holes for the sensors around the perimeter of the body.