Automation of freight transport

The topic of "autonomous driving" has become increasingly important in the recent years. However, before the first fully automated series-produced vehicles can drive on public roads, many technical challenges still need to be solved. In this context, the automation of commercial vehicles in closed areas is an ideal migration path. These so-called automation zones combine areas in which the infrastructure has been developed specifically for autonomous driving. This includes communication technologies, digital maps, monitoring systems and a control center where all data collected in the automation zone converges. Based on this information and the HMI of the control station, an operator will be able to efficiently dispatch and monitor more than ten autonomous vehicles for the execution of work tasks in the future. Drivers are no longer required in these automation zones. Depending on the application, they will take over the vehicles only when the zone needs to be left.

The wide range of applications includes transport tasks in logistics centers, ports, airports, but also uses in agriculture or construction. For example, trucks, swap bodies and trailers in fleets can be moved fully automatically between parking positions and loading ramps, or fields can be worked cooperatively by several machines.

The Commercial Transport WG is investigating technologies for autonomous driving in depots ranging from maneuver planning with specially developed algorithms to testing tracking and sensor systems and conducting driving tests with an autonomous e-truck.

Traction energy consumption is the most important cost factor in rail transport companis‘ electricity bills. It is largely determined by the way the trains are driven. A significant reduction in energy consumption can be achieved through energy-efficient speed profiles. This includes making as much use as possible of coasting phases, as trains do not consume any energy during them. In addition, the energy-efficient coordination of train traffic is also of crucial importance. This includes avoiding too many simultaneous departures because they cause high load peaks in the power grid, which are billed additionally. Furthermore, the synchronization of arriving and departing trains is relevant in order to be able to use the energy fed back during the braking of one train for the acceleration of another.

Building on this, the aim is to control train departures at stations and journeys on the track in real time through implementing driver assistance systems,  the long-term goal being automatic control of train movements. For this, AI methods are needed that are capable of responding to the usual delays in the operational process so that the optimality of the calculated speed profiles is maintained even under disruptions. 

Advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving (ADAS/AD) already play an important role in the development and operation of modern vehicles and are an essential component of economically efficient and sustainable mobility solutions. This is particularly true in the area of commercial vehicles, where suitable assistance systems can substantially increase safety and also make the transport of goods more efficient and resource-conserving at the same time. An important challenge in the development, application and operation of these systems is efficient and realistic testing and validation. Effective testing and hedging concepts must both map a statistically representative customer usage, but at the same time consider all relevant situations up to the point of accidents. This is a correspondingly complex task and requires modern, computer-aided approaches. The development of methods for virtual testing and stochastic variant scenario generation, combined with mathematical methods of artificial intelligence and model-based simulation, therefore represents an important field of research and work at Fraunhofer ITWM.

The Commercial Transport WG has competencies in the application-specific testing and validation of ADAS/AD systems, as well as in the design and optimization of those systems on a hardware and software basis.