As part of the newly launched SynCoPark project (synergies from cooperation and standardisation in manufacturer-independent, automated parking) scientists at the Technical University of Braunschweig and various industry representatives are working on common standards which will make it possible for autonomous parking to be offered extensively in the near future. Also involved in the project are the digitalisation experts from trive.me, an EDAG Group brand.
trive.me is responsible for not only the specification and business model development but also above all for producing the necessary connectivity and programming the cloud services. This means that trive.me once again links the automotive world and the car park world in the Internet of Things.
For SynCoPark, the newly constructed research car park at Braunschweig airport will be given a digital infrastructure and used as a test field for parking processes in various stages of automation with specially equipped research vehicles for physical demonstrations. Characteristic of the demonstrations already performed are the defined hardware equipment and specific vehicle/infrastructure combination which were individually defined as a result of the close cooperation between car manufacturers/suppliers and infrastructure service providers.
The SynCoPark joint project aims to take things further and, in cooperation with trive.me, develop standardised solutions for qualifying and certifying the digital infrastructure in the car park and vehicles. This will will make it possible for parking processes to be carried out at different levels of automation, independently of the vehicle manufacturer, infrastructure provider and car park operator. The creation of interfaces, business logics and data exchange implementation are the basics of highly automated parking," explains Alexander Süssemilch, the man in charge of the project at trive.me. "There are many aspects which will not work without interconnectivity. For autonomous parting, for instance, contact-free access to the car park by means of automated barrier opening must be guaranteed. The same applies when it comes to payment; this must also be an automated process. In the car park itself, the car must be safely navigated to the next available space and parked there. Communication between the vehicle and the infrastructure and between the user and the infrastructure also plays an important role, in order for the the necessary data to be exchanged quickly and efficiently while meeting all IT security requirements."
The solution developed is not just intended for use in new construction projects, but can also be used to update existing car parks, so that automated parking can also be provided in these.
The SynCoPark park has received funding in the amount of € 2.5 million from the Federal Ministry for Transport and Digital Infrastructure's research programme "Automation and Networking of Road Traffic".
In addition to the consortium leader, which role is performed by the Lower Saxony Automotive Research Centre (NFF) of the Technical University of Braunschweig with the Institute of Vehicle Technology (IfF), the Institute of Automotive Industry and Industrial Production (AIP) and the Research Centre for Mobility Law, also involved in the project are APCOA PARKING Deutschland GmbH, EDAG Engineering GmbH, GOLDBECK GmbH, NavCert GmbH and PRETHERM GmbH. Associated partners in the project are Allianz für die Region GmbH, ITS Deutschland GmbH, Leica Geosystems GmbH, Volkswagen AG and the BMW Group.