Moving 1m vehicles autonomously across four facilities for the BMW Group highlights that Embotech’s safety-certified Level 4 autonomous driving solutions are ready to roll out in industrial applications. “We can take all of it and directly apply it to ports,” said Embotech’s Chief Operating Officer Eva Beck.
Autonomous driving solutions company Embotech has announced it has achieved a significant milestone with the BMW Group. The automotive manufacturing giant has now moved one million vehicles around four facilities using automated driving technology, “demonstrating production-scale deployment of the Automated Diving In-Plant solution,” Embotech said.
The milestone highlights how BMW has gone from a pilot project that started in 2022 to a production-scale deployment that sees Embotech control the movement of 3,500 vehicles a day across three BMW factories in Germany and the Mini plant in Oxford, UK with more than 99.5% availability. Embotech’s technology supports different use-case across defined production and logistics areas at each of the four facilities. These include indoor and outdoor driving in areas where people are working.
WorldCargo News spoke to Eva Beck about the milestone and what it means for ports, distribution centres and other applications that are interested in autonomous terminal tractors (ATTs) for moving containers and trailers. Embotech is well placed to comment as it is currently in the process of rolling out a fleet of 30 ATTs at APM Terminals Maasvlatke II in Rotterdam. Here the ATTs will move containers between the landside end of its ASC blocks and the rail terminal, which requires mixed-mode operation with road trucks.
At first glance the BMW applications appear to be significantly different to the rail exchange at a container terminal. The cars move slowly through production facilities and to parking spaces, travelling only in the forwards direction. Moreover, the cars have no onboard sensors or perception systems for navigation. Positioning and detection data is provided by a fixed network of off-the-shelf Hesai LiDAR sensors mounted around the facilities. The cars are controlled via a cellular network that connect to Embotech’s Automated Vehicle Marshalling (AVM) software.
To drive the vehicles Embotech’s AI-based software provides perception, prediction, and motion planning that steers, brakes, accelerates, and parks the cars by calculating optimal driving trajectories up to 10 times per second. A separate safety framework, which has been independently certified by TÜV SÜD, defines and enforces strict physical boundaries to ensure the cars safely navigate around factory workers, mobile equipment and other obstacles.
Beck said that, compared to ports, the use cases are different, but the BMW deployments show that Embotech has developed the operational tools and processes to enable 24/7 operations, monitor production and provide 24/7 support. Embotech has proven its autonomous system can operate reliably in a 24/7 environment with very high availability.
In parallel Embotech with its AVM system. Embotech has developed its Autonomous Tractor Solution (ATS) which is designed for onboard vehicle perception on top of the AI-based performance stack and the algorithmic safety stack. ATS has its own CE-certification from TÜV SÜD.
With thousands of vehicles to manage the offboard perception system makes autonomous driving scalable for BMW’s applications. Beck said ports could also opt for offboard perception if that better suits their use case, or a hybrid system combining elements of offboard and onboard perception.
What Embotech has demonstrated with BMW is that its technology platform is ready to scale. Beck notes that Embotech and BMW completed the first 500,000 automated vehicle movements in 15 months, and the next 500,000 in just seven. “Now we are really at the point where we don’t need to go through pilots anymore,” she stressed.
That does not mean that terminal operators can implement a fleet of ATTs overnight without making sure that their own systems and processes are ready to support autonomous vehicles. What Emobtech is ready to deliver is AI-based software that enables vehicles to operate in closed industrial environments at speeds up to 30km/h, plus a separate safety architecture to define and enforce safety boundaries that has been certified by TÜV SÜD.
“One million vehicles moved using automated driving technology and the deployment of this technology at four sites to date demonstrates the innovative strength and scaling capabilities of our production network,” said Raymond Wittmann, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “We recognised the potential of Automated Driving In Plant early, tested it in a pilot phase and systematically developed it to series maturity. We are now rolling out this technology worldwide.”
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