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Highly automated driving (HAD) is under rapid development and will be available for customers within the next years. However the evidence that HAD is at least as safe as human driving has still not been produced. The challenge is to drive hundreds of millions of test kilometers without incidents to show that statistically HAD is significantly safer. One approach is to let a HAD function run in parallel with human drivers in customer cars to utilize a fraction of the billions of kilometers driven every year. To guarantee safety, the function under test (FUT) has access to sensors but its output is not executed, which results in an open loop problem. To overcome this shortcoming, the proposed method consists of four steps to close the loop for the FUT. First, sensor data from real driving scenarios is fused in a world model and enhanced by incorporating future time steps into original measurements.

Electronic control modules for engine control applications have an increasing number of power drivers. Most of them are switching in a PWM mode or synchronously with engine speed. Fast switching of load currents and voltages generates a noise in the lower AM band (150 kHz … 10 MHz) exceeding given limits for radiated emissions. The objective was to determine how the switching noise could be reduced by means of controlled current and/or voltage slopes. Finally ways were identified to implement appropriate voltage slope controls into a fully integrated quad low side driver ASIC. The paper will show results from practical measurements in the time and frequency domain as well as theoretical data to describe the switching behavior before and after implementation of the improvements A major result was that both current and voltage slope control are necessary to achieve best results. A special method of wave shaping was identified as the optimum.

The aim of the project is to reliably identify the set of constructive features responsible for the highest noise levels in the interior of motor vehicles. A simulation environment based on artificial intelligence techniques such as neural networks and genetic algorithms has been implemented. We used a system identification approach in order to approximate the functional relationship between the target noise series and the sets of constructive parameters corresponding to the cars. The noise levels were measured with a microphone positioned on the driver''s chair, and corresponded to a variation of the engine rotation of 600-900 rot/min. The database includes 45 different cars, each described by vectors of 67 constructive features.

The Advanced Lighting Simulation (ALS) is a development tool for systematically investigating and optimizing the Adaptive Light Control (ALC) system to provide the driver with improved headlamps and light distributions. ALS is based on advanced CA-techniques and modern validation facilities. To improve night time traffic safety the BMW lighting system ALC has been developed and optimized with the help of ALS. ALC improves the headlamp illumination by means of continuous adaptation of the headlamps according to the current driving situation and current environment. BMW has already implemented ALC prototypes in real vehicles to demonstrate the advantages on the real road.

The demands on future mobility concepts for private transport will be determined by three major trends: climate change, urbanization and demographic change. These trends also provide the basis for three main development goals: “zero emissions”, “intelligent mobility” and “zero accidents”. In combination with intelligent traffic concepts and driver assistance functions, electric mobility will make a vital contribution to implementing these goals. To nevertheless keep individual mobility affordable and safe, the complexity of the electrical/electronic architecture (E/E architecture) of today's vehicles must be significantly reduced. It must advance along the steps that avionics and industrial automation already took more than 20 years ago, i.e. it must adopt the structures and methods of modern information and communication technologies (ICT). The text below describes the motivation and idea for future E/E architectures and the potential which arises from changing them significantly.

It is now several years since most passenger vehicles were provided with a dual circuit braking system. The increased safety which has been obtained by this, has the disadvantage of extra pedal movement and increased pedal force which is then required when one circuit has broken down. Besides the deterioration in braking performance it can give the driver a shock. By replacing the tandem cylinder of conventional type hitherto used with a new type, these disadvantages have practically been eliminated.

When investigating the posture comfort in vehicles two important influencing factors can be distinguished: In order to evaluate these influences a combined laboratory-field-experiment was carried out. A real car was equipped with cameras to record the body posture and the joint angles. The static forces exerted by the driver on his contact points were recorded in a corresponding mock-up. The forces to maintain the body posture were calculated. The following results were found: