TruckandTrackAutumn2019

Truck and Track Autumn 2019 www.truckandtrack.com 24 BUSINESS NEWS ■■ Cross-manufacturer platooning systemdemonstrates five central driving functions: forming, driving, emergency braking, exiting by individual vehicles, splitting up ■■ Initial demonstrations and tests with commercial vehicle makers have been conducted ■■ Solution is still being flexibly developed together with the makers ■■ Development partners are now focusing on the Highway Pilot as an application Continental and Knorr-Bremse are taking a further step in their development partnership towards highly automated commercial vehicle driving: for automated platooning (i.e. driving in a line), the engineering company from Hannover and the world market leader for braking systems, and leading supplier of subsystems for rail and commercial vehicles, have joined forces to develop the Platooning Demonstrator, based on a platoon of three trucks of different makes. Initial test runs anddemonstrations tocustomershavealreadybeenconducted at testing grounds. The cooperation partners show with this Platooning Demonstrator what driving functions they can develop, jointly with the vehicle manufacturers, for automated driving. This includes the formation of platoons, driving together, the emergency braking function, exiting by individual vehicles and safe splitting up of the entire platoon. During the development work, special attention is being paid to the process for transferring control from the driver to the vehicle. A key element of this is clear instructions on what to do, which the driver receives via the specially designed human/ machine interface. It displays the information graphically and clearly. This enables the driver to track the status of the system transparently at all times. The transfer itself is initiated on request by the push of a button as soon as the partner vehicle is less than 50 meters away. The synchronous vehicle to vehicle (V2V) emergency braking function ensures greater traffic safety: By initiating simultaneous braking of all the vehicles, without any delay due to reaction times, the vehicles come to a stop the same distance apart as during driving. That now gives customers a test platform for platooning regardless of vehiclemake, and a basis onwhich the technology can be further developed. “With the Platooning Demonstrator, we’ve reached the first milestone of our joint work. The focus now is on exchanging Important milestone reached: Continental & Knorr-Bremse complete their Platooning Demonstrator In an emergency braking situation, fast reaction times in the platoon are crucial