Bosch has the parts, technology and timeline ready for self-driving cars. Between CES announcements and Automotive News World Conference, cars with highway pilot will be ready to roll by 2020 with auto pilot by 2025 for cars piloted without a driver.
Bosch has been working on automated driving since 2011 at Palo Alto, California, and Abstatt, Germany. The teams at the two locations draw on a worldwide network of more than 5,000 Bosch engineers in the field of driver assistance systems. The motivation behind the development of self-driving car tech at Bosch is safety. Worldwide, an estimated 1.3 million traffic fatalities occur each year, and the numbers are rising. In 90 percent of cases, human error is the cause.
Bosch has production contracts to supply components for integrated highway assist and highway assist in 2017 and 2018 for an unnamed automaker.
Bosch highway pilot cars will be driving automatically on freeways by 2020, from entrance ramp to exit ramp, predicts Bosche In the decade that follows, vehicles driving fully automated will be available, capable of handling any situations that arise by about 2025.
Integrated highway assist with vehicles going 75mph on the highway, staying in the lane with the driver looking at the road will be ready by 2017. Highway assist with cars on the highway staying at steady rate and automatically changing lanes is expected by 2018
Automated driving affects every aspect of the car – powertrain, brakes, steering – and requires comprehensive systems expertise. It is based on sensors featuring radar, video, and ultrasound technology, sensors Bosch has been manufacturing by the millions for many years.
Powerful software and computers process the collected information and ensure that the automated vehicle can move through traffic in a way that is both safe and fuel efficient.
As vehicles gradually take over more and more driving tasks, safety-critical systems such as brakes and steering must satisfy special requirements.
Bosch notes that if one of these components fail, a fall-back is needed to ensure maximum availability. Bosch already has a fall-back for brakes: the iBooster, an electromechanical brake booster. Both iBooster and the ESP braking control system are designed to brake the car – independently of each other – without the driver having to intervene.
The iBooster can also provide the gentle braking required by the ACC adaptive cruise control, all the way down to a complete stop, while being almost silent.
The iBooster are used in EVs in most typical traffic delays it can be used to recover maximum braking energy for the hybrid or electric vehicle’s electric motor.
Bosch supplies the electric motor and long-range radar for the Google self-driving car.
There were major autonomous vehicle announcements from Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW…all German engineered cars. Bosch is also in Germany….
To illustrate its commitment to self-driving cars at CES, Bosh had a Knight Rider, K.I.T.T. speaking and self-driving Pontiac Firebird replica at its booth on display.