Automated driving navigation system wins Copernicus Masters 2013

With an innovative approach designed to meet the need for redundant positioning and navigation systems, Hartmut Runge from the Earth Observation Center (EOC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has just been named the overall winner of this year's Copernicus Masters, and the competition's BMW ConnectedDrive Challenge. The competition was previously called the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (GMES).
November 5, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
With an innovative approach designed to meet the need for redundant positioning and navigation systems, Hartmut Runge from the Earth Observation Center (EOC) of the 2206 German Aerospace Center (DLR) has just been named the overall winner of this year's Copernicus Masters, and the competition's 1731 BMW ConnectedDrive Challenge.  The competition was previously called the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security programme (GMES).

DLR's navigation method incorporates street lights, crash barrier posts, bridge railings, and other roadside features that are easily visible for both vehicles and earth observation satellites. With modern radar satellites, a comprehensive inventory of such landmarks can be compiled with centimetre-level accuracy and applied to digital roadmaps. A vehicle's optical or radar based system can thus constantly determine its current position based on triangulation of these points.

This idea won Hartmut Runge the EUR 20,000 grand prize, presented by Prof Dr Volker Liebig, director of Earth Observation Programmes and head of ESRIN, ESA during the Copernicus Masters awards ceremony.

"The interdisciplinary idea utilises Earth observation methods to provide a solution for a challenge the automobile industry really faces," states Benjamin Krebs from innovation management BMW ConnectedDrive at BMW Group research and technology. "We're excited by the high level of innovation evident in this vision and are looking forward to evaluating the next steps here at BMW Group with Mr Runge."
Location Based Systems Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Remote remedies help US authorities identify bridge deficiencies
    September 6, 2017
    Every day 185 million vehicles – cars, trucks, school buses, emergency response units - cross one or more of America’s 55,710 'structurally compromised' steel and concrete road bridges, the highest concentration of which are in Iowa (nearly 5,000), Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Nearly 2,000 of these crossings are located on interstate highways, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's recent analysis of the US Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
    Read More
  • Streetline heads for first European deployment of smart parking technology
    October 23, 2012
    Streetline’s smart parking technology, which is already well established in the US in cities such as Los Angeles, Indianapolis and Washington, DC, is about to achieve its first European deployment, in the German city of Braunschweig. This follows the announcement earlier this year that Streetline and Siemens had entered into a strategic partnership to offer integrated parking solutions to municipalities around the globe. Streetline’s sensor technology sits in the road surface and provides real-time informat
    Read More
  • Xerox a founding partner in connected vehicle initiative
    September 8, 2014
    Xerox joins a select group of companies, including Econolite, Iteris, Delphi, Denso, Bosch, Honda, Nissan, Toyota and General Motors, which will be the founding partners in the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center (MTC). Spanning such sectors as auto manufacturing, suppliers, ITS, insurance, telecommunications, data management, and mobility services, the MTC’s Leadership Circle will join with government and academic partners to lay the foundations for a commercially viable system of co
    Read More
  • Will standardisation increase ITS interoperability?
    February 1, 2012
    Theoretical balance Kallistratos Dionelis, secretary general of ASECAP, comments on the European Commission's new ICT Standardisation Work Programme. I've just read a proposal from the European Commission on the 2010-2013 ICT Standardisation Work Programme. As ASECAP Secretary General this is one of my responsibilities. I work to receive information, to disseminate information and to build bridges and mutual understanding between policy-makers and the industrial world, between ASECAP and others.
    Read More

Highlighted Content