An interview with Prof. Bharat Balasubramanian, head of DaimlerChrysler’s Group Research and Advanced Development Electrical/Electronic, IT and Processes directorate:

The PreSafe brake, which marks the latest safety technology development, not only assists drivers but also takes decision-making power from them by automatically initiating a braking maneuver in dangerous situations. How much will DaimlerChrysler intervene in driver autonomy?

Safety systems like the PreSafe brake are designed to support drivers in normal and critical driving situations, but never to supercede their decision-making power. Our systems therefore react in three stages: In critical situations, drivers are initially warned of the danger through a visual signal, which is followed in the second stage by an acoustic alarm. It is only in the third stage — in the case of PreSafe, after a driver has failed to brake and a rear-end collision becomes unavoidable — that the system intervenes automatically by generating 40 percent of maximum braking force.

Rather than being an isolated solution employed for the PreSafe brake only, this three-stage concept is used with all DaimlerChrysler safety systems. For example, ESP only intervenes and stabilizes the vehicle if the driver fails to react to a flashing warning light in the instrument panel. The same is true of Distronic and the Brake Assist system. In other words, drivers can override the assistance systems at any time simply by reacting. They thus retain ultimate responsibility and freedom of action.

How satisfied are customers with assistance systems such as PreSafe and night view assist?

The response to these systems has been quite positive. For example, not only have sales of night view assist, which was introduced with the new S-Class, significantly exceeded expectations; several completely independent studies have also shown that our night view system enjoys a much higher level of acceptance than competing solutions. One reason for this is that night view assist is an active system that uses infrared headlights and a camera to provide drivers with a clear image on a monitor of pedestrians and animals on the road, regardless of what the outside temperature is.

Another reason for the high level of acceptance in my opinion has to do with the fact that our customers truly love innovation. They purchase vehicles like the S-Class precisely because of the state-of-the-art technologies it comes with. We therefore plan to further develop night view assist functions that provide drivers with even more support, and we will also incorporate more intelligent features into our vehicles. One conceivable option here would be to have the display isolate pedestrians in a type of spotlight. The system could also be made to recognize traffic signs and temporarily insert onto the display those currently valid on a stretch of road — such as speed limit signs — until they no longer apply.

What new steps will be taken in vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and in which areas will DaimlerChrysler employ inter-vehicle data exchange systems?

Vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication represents a logical supplement to existing navigation and assistance systems as a means of warning drivers of approaching dangers, or conditions on an upcoming stretch of road. Such operations are carried out today by radar and infrared systems integrated into the vehicle, and we will support such systems in the future by adding optical cameras. Unfortunately, such systems have only limited visibility — but this visibility can be significantly expanded upon through the utilization of communication systems.

The basic technologies for this have already been created. For example, it’s now possible to exchange information between vehicles at an intersection. It’s also possible to exchange data between a vehicle and infrastructure devices such as traffic lights. In addition, data can be transferred from one vehicle to another in a consecutive manner in traffic convoys, thereby enabling a traffic jam warning to be passed on in time to cars far behind.
The challenge now facing DaimlerChrysler and other automakers is to ensure that the various communication techniques will also function reliably with numerous vehicles, and that viable rollout strategies for the technology are planned. Various cross-brand initiatives have already been launched in Europe, Japan and the U.S. for this purpose. In Germany, we’re currently examining several major cities as possible locations for a long-term field test of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to infrastructure communication systems.

In addition to E/E research activities, the DaimlerChrysler directorate you manage is taking on a greater number of advanced development assignments. What’s the reason for this?

We are in fact now more closely linking research and series development. Our research will continue to serve as the foundation for developments that benefit as many corporate areas and business units as possible. Up until now, the overall process has been divided into the three stages of research, advanced development, and series development. This structure requires a lot of time for coordination, and it’s also led to high costs. We’ve therefore now begun to link advanced development with research and smooth the transition to series development. In addition to saving time and money, we also expect this to lead to a higher share of ideas that are actually implemented as products.

We’ve smoothed out the connections between the individual units through close cooperation and discussions between the responsible managers from Group Research and Advanced Development and their counterparts at Series Development. This system is also supported by the fact that staff are able to take their projects from a research unit to a series development unit for further work, and then return to their home unit after a certain period of time. This means there will be more frequent transfers of staff between Group Research and the Mercedes Car Group in the future than has been the case to date.

What role does your location in Bangalore, India, play in this regard? Wouldn’t close proximity to Mercedes Car Group and Chrysler Group plants offer an advantage?

The close proximity between DaimlerChrysler researchers and the development engineers at the various plants is definitely an advantage. For this reason, we also want to bring most of the directorate teams to Sindelfingen, and integrate more Chrysler Group employees than we have in the past.

Our institute in Bangalore, which was set up as a research center, has for various reasons evolved toward becoming an engineering center over the years. Our goal is to work with the business units to further expand this successful center.

Bangalore possesses a great deal of software expertise and employs a pool of highly qualified specialists. We can do a lot of things at lower cost there that don’t require constant contact with series development engineers. Computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), with their broad range of applications, are two things that come to mind here.

What strategies is your directorate pursuing to further establish IT-supported processes for development and production? For example, you probably also need to incorporate suppliers into internal Group processes.
First of all, we must start exploiting new developments in information technology, such as RFID. However, the great challenge in establishing IT-supported processes is to ensure convergence — in other words, the digital process chain at the company needs to be further harmonized in order to enable data documentation and data exchange across all business units. In the area of product development, for example, we’re working on common methods and tools that ultimately will lead to joint parts lists and EDM for the Mercedes Car Group and the Chrysler Group.

Comprehensive management of engineering data must encompass more than just development, prototype construction, and production, however. That’s why we also want to incorporate sales and the After Sales/Services unit in order to be able to react faster and in a more targeted manner to customer requirements and suggestions. The digital inclusion of supplier firms is no problem, as our suppliers are already firmly integrated into our IT processes.

Quality assurance is a basic issue for vehicle electronic systems. What measures can be taken to improve quality assurance even further?

The basic rule here is that all innovations must be holistically secured. This means, for example, that when you have a new electronic component, you put it through hardware-in-the-loop tests that can extensively examine even complex electronic structures using simulation technology, and also recognize and repair functional errors. This ensures that the product is already well advanced when vehicle testing begins.

It’s even better to be able to isolate the possible causes of errors before the prototype stage, which is why we’ve begun checking the concept documents and specifications for possible contradictions in successful pilot projects. Our experts are also standardizing the concept documents and specifications in an IT-supported workflow, and they systematically search through them for all conceivable combinations of factors that might lead to discrepancies. These procedures ensure that we end up with an advanced set of specifications, allowing us to avoid errors at an early stage, which in turn significantly reduces the costs associated with errors later on in the process.

Most vehicle innovations today involve electronic systems. How do you ensure that the latest developments in electronics research are identified and at some point incorporated into the products?

First of all, I’d like to make it clear that as a vehicle manufacturing company, DaimlerChrysler conducts research, but not basic research. Instead, everything we do is geared toward application. Actual research into electronics — for things like new semiconductor technologies — takes place at electronics firms themselves, of course. To put it bluntly, we’re not very interested in what goes on at the atomic level in a chip, for example.

At the same time, we pay extremely close attention to all technological trends relevant to the Group so we can exploit key developments at a very early stage. This is, of course, the reason why DaimlerChrysler maintains close contact and partnerships with universities and research institutes worldwide. Many students and doctoral candidates who write their theses or dissertations while working at our company remain at DaimlerChrysler Research and Development units after obtaining their degree. Conversely, many employees from the Group teach at universities in a system of partnership that benefits everyone involved.

Our job at Group Research and Advanced Development E/E, IT and Processes is to put into practice the new technologies and knowledge that we’ve determined to be important. One area in particular that comes to mind here are mechatronic systems, which are becoming more and more important. The challenge here is to find the right balance between the application-related aspects of advanced development and long-term topics and issues. Though extremely innovative, the latter also harbors risks, and must therefore be initially addressed and examined by Group Research. Our guideline here is to utilize one-third of our capacity for research and two-thirds for advanced development.

Copyright © 2006, DaimlerChrysler AG