Schaeffler and Mobileye Industrialize Self-Driving Shuttles

Schaeffler and Mobileye are jointly advancing the industrialization of autonomous vehicles. Schaeffler’s Rolling Chassis is a flexible, scalable platform for new, driverless mobility solutions. The partnership combines development and industrialization expertise in the drive and chassis sectors from Schaeffler with Mobileye’s long-standing know-how and lead in driver assistance and autonomous driving.

(Herzogenaurach/Munich) The automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler and Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel and a leading provider of automated driving systems, have agreed to a long-term collaboration. “The rapid regulatory and technological change, increasing urbanization, and growing societal awareness of mobility are driving the demand for alternative, innovative concepts such as autonomous people or logistics movers,” says Matthias Zink, Board Member of Automotive Technologies at Schaeffler AG. “They play a crucial role in sustainable mobility and are a future field in our 2025 roadmap. With the partnership with Mobileye, we aim to develop autonomous shuttles to series production maturity.”

The Rolling Chassis from Schaeffler, a modular platform for new mobility concepts, is combined with the Mobileye Drive™ self-driving system. The goal: to develop a new, flexible platform for self-driving shuttles and other vehicle products at Level 4 full automation and to offer customers worldwide solutions for Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) and Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS). “Mobileye Drive™ is a versatile, scalable self-driving solution that can fully automate any vehicle type. The new and innovative vehicle platform from Schaeffler, equipped with our Mobileye Drive system, enables the broad deployment of self-driving shuttles and other driverless transport solutions starting in the next two years,” says Johann Jungwirth, Vice President of Mobility-as-a-Service at Mobileye.

Autonomous Transport Solutions Starting in 2023

By combining Mobileye’s technology with Schaeffler’s Rolling Chassis, both companies are able to offer an autonomous, highly flexible, and customizable vehicle platform that meets automotive safety standards with the required redundancies, thus enabling rapid scaling of autonomous transport solutions starting in 2023. Mobility service providers and freight transport companies will be paved the way for the economic introduction of autonomous shuttles, as operating times and efficiency can be significantly increased.

The Rolling Chassis from Schaeffler is a flexible, scalable platform for new, driverless mobility solutions for passenger or freight transport or for special applications, such as mobile charging solutions or pop-up stores. The modular platform showcases the wide range of technologies from Schaeffler and offers a flexible architecture: Various configurations can be implemented regarding steering and drive according to customer requirements – from simple drive systems to an e-axle and central steering to the use of four “Schaeffler Corner Modules.” The Corner Modules, which allow for a cornering angle of up to 90 degrees, have been further developed towards series maturity and scalability. They include the wheel hub motor, the wheel suspension including air suspension, which allows the vehicle to be lowered for entry, the actuator for the electromechanical steering, and a brake.

Turnkey Solution for Autonomous Driving

The self-driving system Mobileye Drive™ is a turnkey solution for autonomous driving that offers safety through two core concepts: Responsibility-Sensitive Safety (RSS), responsible safety as a formal model for the safety of decision logic, and environmental perception through True Redundancy, which combines two independent subsystems (cameras and radar+lidar) to guarantee robust perception. Additionally, the autonomous system can also be deployed without geographical limitations thanks to the Mobileye Road Experience Management™ mapping technology. With its help, a proprietary map of the global road network is created. This is continuously and automatically updated based on the data collected by modern driver assistance systems for the mass market.

Photo: © Schaeffler