BMW cars move through production without drivers thanks to Embotech

Embotech is one of two partner companies that have helped the automotive manufacturer BMW to realize its automated driving in production pilot project. According to a BMW press release, this has now been transferred to series production after successfully securing CE certification. The technology, which has been undergoing testing since July 2022, now guides new cars through production without drivers at both BMW’s largest European plant in Dingolfing and its facility in Leipzig.

BMW has been working with Embotech AG, which was founded in 2013 as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, from early on in its history via its venture client unit, the BMW Startup Garage. Embotech is a supplier of autonomous driving solutions used on private premises as well as in logistics yards, ports, mines and smart factories.

“Automated driving within the plant is fundamentally different from autonomous driving for customers. It doesn’t use sensors in the vehicle”, as project manager Sascha Andree explained at the start of the project. “In fact, the car itself is blind”.

Instead, the BMW system relies on two key technologies: The Lidar recognition software developed by the South Korean start-up Seoul Robotics uses static monitoring sensors to create a digital twin of the environment, which helps with vehicle localization. Meanwhile, Embotech’s drive-planning software steers, brakes, accelerates and parks the driverless vehicles.

“This collaboration, with two young start-ups and an OEM like the BMW Group working together on a single project, is probably the first of its kind”, comments HanBin Lee, CEO of Seoul Robotics. Alexander Domahidi, co-founder and CTO of Embotech, adds: “Without the BMW Startup Garage, we would never have been able to evaluate and test our solution”. Embotech recently won the global award in the category of Autonomous Vehicle Solution of the Year at the SupplyTech Breakthrough Awards. ce/mm