Autonomous at the Factory Door

According to Sweden-based engineering services firm Semcon, a given new vehicle—of which there are some 80-million produced globally each year—must be manually moved about 25 times before it reaches the customer.

Obviously, that means non-trivial costs.

So to address this, a Swedish research project that includes Actia, Combitech, Consat, RISE Viktoria, Semcon, Trafikverket, Volvo Car Corporation and VTI, Born to Drive, has been established to develop the ways and means for vehicles to move from the end of a production line to the marshalling area outside the factory without a driver.

According to Johan Isacon, Born to Drive project manager, “What makes Born to Drive unique is that it is entirely a software solution. This makes the system both cost-efficient and scalable. Since there is already a working prototype, the system could be implemented within just a few years.”

The project has been underway for two years.

According to Semcon the software developed works with existing sensors in vehicles so “no extra hardware is needed.”

While this may be perceived as a limited use case for autonomous driving, it is nonetheless an important one.