Volkswagen is treating finished-vehicle logistics as a proving ground for automation, from Emden’s port to Audi’s rail loading
Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom, Finnish firm Unikie and the Bremen Institute for Production and Logistics have concluded more than two years of driverless vehicle trials at the Port of Emden. Funded by Germany’s transport ministry, AutoLog examined how automated cars can share live logistics areas with manually driven traffic and fit existing workflows.
The test ground combined parking areas, driving routes and a busy roundabout. Work followed ISO 23374, the automated valet parking standard, taking a car park framework into a working port.
The Unikie Marshalling Solution coordinates vehicles using a digital site model, running on edge computing with commands sent over Deutsche Telekom’s upgraded public 5G network. That puts time-critical control on shared mobile infrastructure.
In a statement, Vesa Kiviranta, Chief Business Officer for Automotive and Marshalling Solutions at Unikie, said: “In Emden, we have demonstrated that automated vehicle movements can be tested even in a demanding logistics environment with mixed traffic. The interaction of our marshalling solution with the existing infrastructure and manually driven vehicles is an important step. The experience gained helps us to further develop the technology and assess its commercial readiness to other logistics environments.”
The partners also tested automatic rail-wagon loading at Audi’s Ingolstadt plant. Results from the closed testing phase will inform further development and assessment of other applications.
Source: Volkswagen Group
