Robust and embeddable optimal control techniques have revolutionized the automotive industry in the last decades in at least two domains: safety and energy. Both domains have challenged control engineers with with complex problems, where advanced and nonlinear control techniques needed to be implemented in inexpensive automotive-grade hardware.
We have helped customers solving such problems via providing our expertise in modelling, problem formulation and efficient hardware implementation. The example list below is not exhaustive but only representative of the main areas of recent interest.
AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
MOTION PLANNING
MOTION CONTROL
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
Our energy management solutions, developed for purely electric but also for hybrid-electric powertrains, makes use of state-of-the-art numerical optimization technologies in order deliver the optimum range out of the given powertrain and energy storage setup. It seamlessly optimizes the velocity profile, the battery state-of-charge and, in the case of hybrid powertrains, the power distribution between combustion engine and electric motor.
MAJOR ADVANTAGES
- Builds on state-of-the-art real-time optimization technology
- Delivers smooth driving trajectories – passenger comfort
- Customizable based on the driving style of the customer
- Easily adapted for any vehicles – no machine learning or vehicle training for motion planning
- Very close to an offline dynamic programming solution
- Achieves close to global energy optimal driving in real-world scenarios
- Delivering on a ~5km horizon and an update rate of ~100ms
- Uses non-linear maps of the powertrain components
- Can include complex constraint
ACTIVE SAFETY
We have been helping customers develop active safety solutions such as torque vectoring and active suspension systems based on real-time implementation of embedded MPC.
race assist and autonomous racing
As an application example, the Formula Student Autonomous team of ETH Zurich (AMZ racing) has successfully won competitions by using our motion planner. The video on the left shows how the motion planner makes prediction and generates trajectories continuously and in real time.
You may be interested in knowing that the winning car is physically located in our office in Zurich. It’s worth paying a visit to see it and to find out more.
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