BMW scales up highly automated driving for China’s highways

BMW is embarking on a research project, which will pave the way for highly automated driving in China. “Vision Zero” is a strategy for achieving accident-free mobility that is being pursued right across Europe in many different arenas – social, political, scientific and industrial. Following on from research projects in which BMW vehicles have already clocked up thousands of kilometers of highly automated driving on German and European motorways, a project is now being launched in the world’s largest car market, China, as the next logical step in the development of this technology. The fast-expanding Chinese market includes the metropolitan regions of Beijing and Shanghai and a growing number of other megacities.

OneShift Editorial Team

02 Oct 2014

Over the next two years, the BMW Group will be building prototype research vehicles for use in highly automated driving trials on Chinese roads. Whereas typical features which must be taken into account in Europe include tunnels, national borders and toll stations, China’s fast-expanding urban centers also present the engineers with challenges such as multi-level highways. BMW is taking on this new engineering challenge because it believes that only with a complete command of all the technical fundamentals will it be possible to help clarify the legal issues surrounding highly automated driving.

the highly automated research prototype presented at CES 2014, which is based on a BMW 2 Series Coupe, boasts further perfected control technology. This is rooted in BMW’s view that, in order to offer robust and dependable driver stress relief in tiring situations, highly automated driving systems must be capable of coping with all potential vehicle dynamics scenarios, right through to extreme situations such as a sudden emergency.

The BMW Group is teaming up with internet giant Baidu as its Chinese partner in this latest ambitious research project. Baidu operates China’s largest search engine and is also a provider of map services and cloud services. The highly automated prototypes developed in this joint project will initially be operated on urban highways in Beijing and Shanghai.

Credits: Oneshift News Team