Platooning trucks through the streets of Munich, DAF Trucks and NXP target new goal for 2017
DAF Trucks and NXP Semiconductors are aiming to improve their autonomous vehicle-to-everything technology (V2X) platooning solution to react 30 times faster than a human by next year.
Announcing the new goal as part of a showcase of their platooning progress through the streets of Munich, NXP and DAF say, at present, they can achieve a truck platooning distance of 0.5 seconds between trucks but are striving to reduce that figure by 40 per cent.
“While platooning at 80 km per hour, trucks that were linked wirelessly via V2X technology, along with high-performance camera and radar systems, were able to maintain a distance of 11m flawlessly,” NXP says.
“The consortium is now cooperating to further bring down the minimum distance between trucks by another 40 per cent (to 0.3 seconds which equals 7m at 80 km/h).”
The target number, which would account to 30 times the speed of a human reaction, means vehicles would be communicating in sheer milliseconds and would improve on the current a fuel efficiency gain of 10 per cent.
To achieve the number, NXP says it has three new advances to trial for its solution, titled Roadlink.
The first will be to integrate “a powerful Sensor Fusion and Control System that can create, monitor and maintain platooning and driving modes in a functionally safe way”.
The second will be the development of the NXP BlueBox platform, which will incorporate a number of “microcontrollers, microprocessors, power management ICs, and networking components” to achieve a shorter driving distance safely.
The third will involve using an advanced on-board radar system to detect road interference, such as other vehicle cutting into the platoon, in a quicker and more accurate manner.
That new radar will be launched this week at the German industry show Electronica 2016.
The Munich demonstration by the two companies, and their partners in Honda, Siemens, Marben, Cohda Wireless and Chemtronics, will also be joined by autonomous car showcase from University of Eindhoven.