STUTTGART: Porsche is working on a new system that will enable cars to drive themselves into the repair shop and park up afterwards in readiness for customer collection.
The potential revolution in workshop practice is being pioneered by Berlin-based start-up Kopernikus at a joint testing area in Ludwigsburg near here.
The procedure is initiated by a technician who uses a tablet to summon the car and position it on the repair ramp. Once the mechanics have completed their task, the car is lowered back down and drives off automatically to a space in the car park where the customer picks it up.
The process is still in the prototype stage and to watchers at the Ludwigsburg test track progress does seem a little jerky. “This will take time but once it is up and running the pace is not so important,” said Stefan Jenzowsky from Porsche, adding with a wink “even if it is a Porsche.”
The remote control of cars in a workshop environment can save time and money. The system does away with human drivers and is governed by artificial intelligence and a computer which monitors all the vehicles on the site.
The working brief for Jenzowsky and his colleagues was simple. “The whole thing should be possible using technology which is already standard in the cars and which does not need to be developed first,” said the expert.
The vehicles themselves do not need to have full robot-driving capability. The AI system uses sensors on the workshop site to guide the cars to their destination. “This means we get away from sensors in the vehicle and relatively rigid programming towards data-based intelligent systems,” said Porsche project leader Alexander Haas.
Cameras in front of and inside the workshop scan the entire on site landscape. The software in the computer can recognise cars, people and other objects. The device calculates the optimal course of a car to its destination and passes on the commands to driving assistants in the car which are normally used by humans when piloting the vehicle.
The connection is made by Wi-Fi which all modern Porsches have on board as standard. “Actually this system is already very close to being used on a regular basis,” said Jenzowsky.
One aspect is particularly important to the Porsche man and his colleague Haas. Since the movements of other vehicles and pedestrians on site are anticipated and taken into account by the computer, the cars never follow a pre-determined path. This makes them flexible and able to respond better to obstacles.
The cars choose a different route around the site to suit the circumstances although that leads a lot of adjusting and shunting back and forth of the cars - at least in the initial non-production stage.
One thing is clear to the Porsche experts. Owners who have forked out a lot of cash to have driver-assistance and safety features installed in their cars will not be willing to be pay on top just to make things easier for mechanics at the workshop.
The cost is estimated per vehicle at around several hundred euros, according to Jenzowsky and this will have to be borne by participating repair shops. Naturally Porsche believes this will save dealers and repair shops a lot of money in the long run bearing in mind that hundreds and thousands of repairs are carried out each year.
“If you can save just a few minutes at a time that adds up to a lot of money,” said Jenzowsky.
Dominik Lutter, a digital expert at the German motor trade association, is keen on the idea. He believes it could be particularly useful for large repair and service companies which handle hundreds of vehicles a day. For smaller businesses with just a few cars in the yard the cost is likely to be prohibitive.
Kopernikus and Porsche are thinking on a larger scale and they believe the system is also ideal for large car parking garages. Daimler and Bosch are already using a similar system to remotely direct cars to spaces at the multi-storey car park of the Mercedes-Benz museum here.
Haas and Jenzowsky say they can envisage other applications at logistic centres or ports where vehicles are loaded onto trains or ships. “Thousands of drivers are employed at these places,” said Jenzowsky. Another advantage is that highway and other regulations do not apply at privately-owned sites which gives more scope for implementing AI solutions.
The Porsche system has already completed a million test kilometres in computer and real-life testing but trained drivers employed to manoeuvre vehicles around sites will not be out of a job soon.
The computer cannot yet replace the trained eye and steady hand of an experienced car or lorry shunter. The cameras are capable of positioning a vehicle to within 10 centimetres of its designated resting place, but that degree of accuracy is not enough when driving a car onto a hydraulic ramp for repairs.
Porsche hopes that by fine-tuning the system it can position a vehicle to an accuracy of within 1cm and that should suffice for most applications.
