MUNICH: The Atlas-L4 research and development project for automated transport between logistics centres on level 4 motorways has been achieved after a three-year period.
Developed and executed by a consortium from the trucking, sciences, software development and infrastructure industries, the 12 partners in the Atlas-L4 project were MAN Truck & Bus, Knorr-Bremse, Leoni, Bosch, Fernride, BTC Embedded Systems, Fraunhofer AISEC, Technical University of Munich, Technical University of Braunschweig, TÜV SÜD, Autobahn GmbH and the Wurzburg Institute of Transport Sciences (WIVW GmbH).
The project also involved the efforts of some 150 engineers and was funded by Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection with a total budget of 59.1 million euros (RM284mil).
With the passing of a law enabling autonomous driving on defined routes under technical supervision in 2021, Atlas-L4 set off to pioneer the new breakthrough development.
MAN Truck & Bus Executive Board Member for Research and Development Dr Frederik Zohm said the development and integration of the redundant components required for safe use, such as steering, brakes and the vehicle electrical system, as well as the creation of a validation concept required interdisciplinary expertise and close teamwork.
"As a consortium, we have proven ourselves with this project that autonomously driving trucks are feasible," he said.
The work of Atlas-L4 can therefore be used as a basic concept for future industrial developments.
However, the project also revealed various detailed questions still need to be clarified for an autonomous truck in series production.
Automation concepts also offer a solution to the driver shortage that the industry has been suffering from for years.
There is already a shortage of around 100,000 truck drivers in Germany.
