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

  • Developments in software visualisation packages
    February 3, 2012
    Adrian Greeman looks at developments in software visualisation packages. The capacity to make visualisations has been growing in importance over the last decade, and is now a well-accepted part of consultations and client presentations. But making high-quality images of projects is still a major undertaking and larger consultancies employ specialist departments to do so. Costs are coming down but it can still take a while, and some high-capacity hardware, to produce realistic renderings from drawings and 3D
    Read More
  • Smart Cities put people, prudence and businesses before technology
    December 4, 2014
    Caroline Haynes tells ITS International that transport planners and equipment suppliers need to adopt different thinking and the smartest cities don’t call themselves smart. The term Smart Cities has been around for some time and has become something of a catch-all term applied to novel or futuristic technology deployed in an urban setting.
    Read More
  • Nearly 59,000 US bridges still structurally deficient, new analysis finds
    February 19, 2016
    According to the US Department of Transportation's recently-released 2015 National Bridge Inventory database, there were 2,574 fewer structurally deficient bridges in 2015 compared to the number in 2014. However, there are still 58,500 on the structurally deficient list and at the current pace of bridge investment it would take at least 21 years before they were all replaced or upgraded. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), which conducts an annual review of state bridge da
    Read More
  • San Jose implements Intel technology for a smarter city
    June 13, 2014
    In the US, the city of San José and Intel are collaborating to further the city's Green Vision initiative with the use of Intel technology. The pilot program, known as Smart Cities USA, is Intel's first smart city implementation in the United States and is intended to improve air and water quality, reduce noise pollution, and increase transportation efficiency. According to Intel, the scalability of its architecture provides the intelligence and flexibility necessary for cities to quickly deploy a range
    Read More

Highlighted Content