Fraunhofer Institute Developing Autonomous Electric Cars

Though the hype about automated driving was prompted by Google's prototype self-driving car a couple of years ago, in the meantime, many self-driving car concepts were developed by various car makers, taking autonomous vehicles to a whole new level. Autonomous driving technology has advanced immensely in recent years, and the latest innovation comes from the German research organization Fraunhofer Institute, which is joining automakers and tech giants in their efforts to bring self-driving cars one step closer to commercial reality.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA is working on an electric car that can drive itself, employing the similar technology that is used by the likes of Google, BMW, Nissan, Volvo, and Audi, but also adding some innovative features that have not been introduced so far. A groups of researchers at the Europe's largest application-oriented research organization have developed a prototype, called E-Mobile, that can navigate through traffic completely independently, as part of the project Afkar, which is a German abbreviation for "autonomous driving and intelligent chassis concept for an all-electric vehicle".

One of the most innovative things about the Institute's technology is that it allows the car to charge itself. To do this, it will have to be able to find a vacant parking spot and park itself, without the input of a human driver, and the researchers have managed to integrate that kind of functionality into their model. With this feature, the person that operates the car can just bring the car into a parking garage and leave it at the closest available parking space, and the car will immediately connect to the garage's management system wirelessly, and see where the charging station is, and head towards it. Then, after it locates the charging station, it moves autonomously toward the parking spot designated for recharging, and the car's battery will be recharged inductively, without the need to plug a cable into a charging socket.

After the battery is fully charged, the car gets out of the parking space and moves to another available space, allowing another car to be recharged. It can do all this thanks to the sensors installed in the car, that monitor its surroundings and allow it to avoid obstacles and get to its destination. This is a pretty convenient feature, and it could be of great help to the car-sharing industry.

However, the E-Mobile's radars, cameras and laser scanners allow it to only travel short distances autonomously (up to about 900 feet), and in order for it to be able to navigate city streets, it will need sensors that can look much further than that. The Institute will implement this technology in a demonstration vehicle soon, and will test it on temporarily closed public roads and test tracks.

Even though this technology can have practical application in both commercial and personal transportation, it will take a while before fully autonomous vehicles can operate on public streets. "Whether autonomous driving makes a breakthrough will be decided, along with the right price, by customer acceptance and the legal framework. For example, the liability for accidents has to be re-regulated. The technology will probably conquer the market step by step," says Benjamin Maidel, Afkar's project manager.