Research Projects - E-Mobility

Disruptive Modular Architecture for Agile, Automated Vehicle Concepts

UNICARagil unites the competences of leading German universities in the field of automated driving and selected industrial partners, to rethink future mobility and vehicles with their development processes. Within the scope of the four-year project, the consortium led by Prof. Eckstein will develop disruptive, modular, agile and automated vehicle concepts. The development avoids inherited liabilities in order to provide solutions for challenges imposed by emerging mobility trends and to set impulses for the future. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany fund the project with an overall budget of 32 million Euros.

A total of eight universities have joined forces with eight industrial partners to develop fully automated and driverless electric vehicles based on the latest results of research into automated and connected driving as well as electromobility. The basis for this is a modular and scalable vehicle concept consisting of a utility and drive unit. It can be flexibly adapted to a wide range of applications in logistics and passenger transport. Automated and locally emission-free vehicles can meaningfully exploit these in particular. Core elements of the research and development work are the novel architectures both in hardware and in software.

In addition to overall project management, ika is responsible for the conceptual design of the modular driving platform and the construction of the autoSHUTTLE, one of the four vehicles. The autoSHUTTLE offers space for up to eight people and is part of a new, improved public transport system. Optimally adapted to the needs of users at all times, it represents the public transport of the future.

The ika is also responsible for the design of the dynamic modules, which combine the tasks of steering, suspension, driving and braking through the integration of modern wheel hub drives. The modules enable movement behavior in road traffic through steering angles of up to 90°. The control units required to control the modules are developed and validated as dedicated hardware.

Future vehicles will be supported by intelligent infrastructure and cloud systems. UNICARagil focuses on concepts in this research area as well. At ika, a cloud-based environment model for improved perception of automated vehicles and a novel collective traffic memory will be designed and implemented.

With more than 100 project members throughout Germany, the project combines the fields of mechanical engineering and vehicle technology with electrical engineering, computer science, logistics, ergonomics, psychology and vehicle design.