The autonomous driving has been a busy day for many automotive companies. Whether BMW, Volkswagen or Tesla, they are all researching the future of mobility and the optimization of the driverless car. In recent months, Volkswagen has sent various autonomous test cars across the streets of Hamburg. Equipped with more than 30 laser scanners, cameras, radar sensors and analysis devices, their suitability for road traffic was tested. Now VW takes stock.
The tests took place at level 4 of autonomous driving and the results encourage the group. After the tests, VW now wants to go into series production with its autonomous vehicles in the medium term and launch the autonomous vehicles on the market.
“We are working on a market-ready self-propelled system that we want to commercialize as early as the middle of the coming decade”, Alexander Hitzinger, Volkswagen
The tests presented the vehicles with major challenges. In a complicated environment, full of pedestrians crossing the road without looking, cars parking the wrong way and other obstacles, Volkswagen tested the cars for all kinds of challenges in everyday traffic madness and continuously optimized the systems. According to the VW researchers, the VW Golfs used are already capable of predicting the traffic situation for around ten seconds.
By 2025, VW now wants to bring the first marketable autonomous vehicles onto the market and thus make optimum use of the findings from the field test in Hamburg.
Hamburg is currently developing into a model city for autonomous driving. The VW project is one of now 70 projects with which Hamburg is preparing for the ITS World Congress, which will be hosted by the city.
Post picture: Volkswagen
