Bosch is premiering self-driving Tesla S cars at the International Automotive Press Briefing in Boxberg, Germany.
Bosch retrofitted the Tesla S cars with fifty new Bosch components. The Tesla S self-driving cars will offer highly automated driving and can autonomously drive from on-ramp to off-ramp without constant driver monitoring.
Bosch added a stereo video camera to recognize lanes, traffic signs, and clear spaces. Bosch claims the stereo camera is the smallest stereo camera system for automotive applications currently available in the market.
1,300 meters of cable were laid in each car and fixed in place with 400 cable ties.
For safety the design team added redundancy in safety-critical systems such as braking and steering. Both test Tesla car have both the iBooster electromechanical brake booster and the ESP braking control system. These Bosch components can brake the car independently of each other, without any need for driver intervention.
Back-up systems are also available for the two test vehicles’ power supplies and vital ECUs.
Bosch chose the Tesla cars because they “combine two automotive industry trends: electrification and automation.”
Since 2011, Bosch has had two teams in Germany and the United States working on autonomous driving.
To make it as easy for the two teams to share their results, Bosch uses identical test vehicles.
Bosch started testing automated driving on public roads at the beginning of 2013 using the BMW 325d Touring. Engineers have successfully driven them for several thousand kilometers on the A81 near Stuttgart and the I280 in California.
For test driving the drivers have been specially trained to understand safety precautions inside out.
In the video below you can see Bosch’s concept of automated driving in what looks a lot like a Tesla.
The first thing the driver, Philip does is read his email and text messages. Then he watches online videos. Unfortunately, this technology is not in use for those who use smartphones and get into accidents.
A Bosch video shows how they outfitted the Tesla S cars for autonomous driving. You can see all the cables that went into the vehicles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op84zlabBAI
Other companies working on self-driving cars are Delphi, Audi, Google and Mercedes-Benz.