Bosch plans Project3F project, autonomous driving is more fault-tolerant

On April 8, it is reported that auto parts giant Bosch is working on a project called “Project 3F”, that is, fault-tolerant driverless vehicles in the low-speed driving range. Utilize a driverless shuttle to transport visitors safely from point A to point B, ensuring that the vehicle can move safely even in the event of technical glitches or sudden obstacles.

Project 3F received a €4.3 million grant from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs, led by Bosch, and included three other companies, a university, and an institute: StreetScooter, RA Consulting, FZI Information Technology Research Center, Finepower and RWTH Aachen University. The project team focused on ensuring that even in the event of a breakdown, the vehicle would not fail completely and could continue to drive.

To achieve the above functions, the first solution is to add redundant systems, that is, to replicate the relevant safety functions. For example, to reliably detect obstacles, the researchers installed several lidar and millimeter-wave radar sensors in multiple places around the vehicle, allowing it to detect the surrounding environment from different locations, providing a 360-degree bird’s-eye view, creating a The 3D protected area avoids blind spots, allowing it to detect not only obstacles in the road, but also objects such as hanging branches.

Another solution is to build fault tolerance, where failure of a subsystem can be at least partially supplemented by other functions. For example, if a leaf sticks to the sensor while driving, or a large object such as a trash can completely blocks the line of sight in a certain direction, preventing the vehicle from detecting an area, the car will slow down. These solutions all ensure that driverless shuttles can travel more safely.

The travel data of the self-driving shuttle and the current state of the technology can also be transmitted from the vehicle and back, so it can transmit information back and forth for the three different functions of diagnosis, monitoring and control, so it is three times stronger than telemetry technology, for A fleet of self-driving shuttles that can be remotely monitored, repaired, and even controlled (like opening a car door) lays the groundwork. This means that if the vehicle can be assisted when it reaches the limits of fault detection and functional compensation, or if such a vehicle requires only simple and regular maintenance.

The above R&D projects were tested on several test tracks: at the Bosch Renningen research park, where two shuttles tested traffic services near a site with pedestrian movement; at the innovation park near RWTH Aachen University, and in Germany Near a Deutsche Post/DHL warehouse, a logistics vehicle was deployed to test the interaction between drivers and automated vehicles.