27.3.2019 Munich. The launch of The new BMW Group High-Performance D3 platform marks a decisive milestone on the way to the BMW Group for highly and fully automated Driving.
Content
- Autonomous Driving at BMW Group.
- The new BMW Group High-Performance D3 platform.
- Some data to illustrate the performance of the BMW Group’s High-Performance D3 platform:
- Strong Partner.
- The BMW Group’s Autonomous Driving Campus.
- New Worlds Of Work.
- Campus as the tip of the spear for agile Work.
Autonomous Driving at BMW Group.
In the year 2000, the BMW Group started the research after the Vision of a vehicle that can travel the driver – but. Six years later – in 2006 – walked around the first BMW on the Hockenheim ring without the intervention of a human being on the ideal line. Since 2011, highly automated test vehicles of the BMW Group, between Munich and Nuremberg, move on to the Federal motorway A9. In 2014, the BMW Group is demonstrated in the framework of the CES on the Las Vegas Speedway to Drive in the border area is highly automated.
These are just some of the milestones in the BMW Group on the way to highly and fully automated, and thus Autonomous Driving.
The BMW Group is convinced that Autonomous Driving in the future, will shape the individual and sustainable mobility. Today’s driver assistance systems like the Driving Assistant Professional of the new BMW 3 series sedan, will form an important building block on the road to highly automated Driving. In addition to safety aspects, it is also a significant gain in comfort as well as improved efficiency in the center of the efforts.
The next goal is clearly defined: In the year 2021, the series-production vehicle of the BMW Vision iNEXT, which was presented in the context of the BMW Vision iNEXT World Flight in the summer of 2018 for the first time, the Public will have, as the first vehicle from the BMW Group and, optionally, a Level 3 System. This System will allow the driver on the highway, up to max. 130 km/h, the driving task is handed over a longer period of time to the vehicle.
At the same time a fleet of test vehicles at the end of 2021 the operating record, which will be tested in the defined urban the Level environments 4 function – i. e. driving without any driver intervention in a large – scale experiment.
The new BMW Group High-Performance D3 platform.
The launch of The new BMW Group High-Performance D3 platform marks a decisive milestone on the way to the BMW Group for highly and fully automated Driving.
The “D3” in the name of the new IT platform for Data-Driven Development. Data-Driven Development provides the basis for the development and validation of highly and fully automated driving functions. For the safety and reliability of the Level 3 system will be offered in the BMW iNEXT end of 2021, is the use of Data-Driven Development is essential.
The approach of Data-Driven Development is placed at the BMW Group for several years. The basic principle follows the assumption that the complexity and variety of traffic situations will be on all continents, in particular enormous quantities of data can be represented and, ultimately, manageable. For this it is necessary that the Algorithms and the overall function of Autonomous driving, to be secured on a broad data basis.
The Basis for the process of the Gathering of around five million kilometres of real-world driving data with the attempt of the test vehicles to the fleet. The selection is made from two million kilometers of the most relevant driving scenarios and factors in the environment.
The relevance of the collected data will be continuously increased, by the selection of qualitative data (qualification, or data filtering). Then, a Re-Processing of these two million kilometers, in particular when a new integration level (I-level) of the control devices is available, to be able to increase the performance of the new I-level rate.
Constantly a Supplement this qualified two million kilometres by using a Simulation-generated 240 million kilometres, which are based in particular on relevant driving scenarios, and ensure that the diversity of the reality of the development is fully taken into account.
The Re-Processing of the two million real-world kilometres, and the Simulation of the 240 million virtual kilometres, requires seeds and a high-performance data platform with more than 230 petabytes of storage capacity, as well as a very powerful Compute platform with more than 100,000 processor and over 200 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).
For the connection between the BMW Group’s High-Performance D3 platform to the “Hardware in the Loop (HiL)” station on the BMW Group’s Autonomous Driving Campus 96 x 100 Gbps fiber lines are available. The resulting usable data rate is about 3.75 Terabit/s.
The fleet for collection of real-life driving data of the currently around 80 vehicles of the BMW 7 series is on the West coast of the United States, Germany, Israel and China. By the end of the year 2019, the fleet will grow to rund140 vehicles.
Some data to illustrate the performance of the BMW Group’s High-Performance D3 platform:
Every day, more than 1,500 TB be collected and new raw data
D3 Platform capacity > 230 PB
Compute: > 100.000 Cores and 200 GPUs
HiL station repro zessieren up to 50 petabytes in 14 days
To get an impression of what amounts of data are moved in the connection: 1.500 TB of new data correspond to approximately 23,000 in iPhone X, 230 PB correspond to a volume of 45 dwellings (approximately 80 m2, room height 3 m) filled with CDs.
The bandwidth of 3.75 Terabit/s corresponds to approximately one Million HDTV programs can be transmitted simultaneously, or approximately one Million households, alongside a HD TV program.
The BMW Group’s High-Performance D3 platform what is implemented within a few months “in function, in budget and on time”. It is located only a few kilometres away from the BMW Group’s Autonomous Driving Campus in Unterschleissheim near Munich.
The spatial proximity was a requirement to be able to include enormous amounts of data from the Campus to the platform latency-free transport.
BMW Group High-Performance D3 platform (photo: BMW AG)
Strong Partner.
With the beginning of the series development of Autonomous driving at BMW Group: The enormous challenges that lie in the development of a secure platform for highly and fully automated Driving, only to realize with the strongest technology partners in their respective discipline.
In the case of the BMW Group’s High-Performance D3 platform, the company DXC Technology is that Partner. The core of the performance of the DXC Technology, the construction and operation of the Data center, as well as developing applications around Autonomous Driving. Objective: reduction of costs and time-to-market of the system.
With the digital solution of DXC Technology BMW Group, development teams are able to select data from the vehicle sensor is not in days or weeks, but in a matter of seconds, to store, to manage, and the necessary data preparation and processing steps as well as simulation and AI training.
The System of DXC is on the ground, in an On-Premise Cloud environment available, so that work loads can be easily moved. Engineers work to agile.
The use of a single platform for storing, processing and KI Training reduces the hardware and software requirements, and thus cost and complexity. Data, global collect, but Central edit. This maximizes efficiency and reduces costs.
The BMW Group’s Autonomous Driving Campus.
The Campus for Autonomous Driving, the BMW Group is a modern competence center that creates the optimum conditions for higher capacity for innovation, development efficiency and, finally, the future viability of the company.
In the autumn of 2017, the first engineers moved to the new building, in April 2018, the official opening of what is celebrated.
“We also want to safe Autonomous is a guide To take position. We are pursuing this goal consistently and systematically provide a framework. One of the milestones is To our Campus for Autonomous“, so at the time, Klaus Fröhlich, member of the Board of management of BMW AG, development.
15 months prior to the opening of the BMW Group pool has made the decision on the development of competencies for advanced driver assistance systems and highly or fully automated Driving to a location. In record time, a Campus was built with 23,000 sqm of office space and space for 1,800 employees.
The optimal infrastructure, the spatial proximity to the BMW Group research and innovation centre, direct access to the motorway and, ultimately, the rapidity with which the work, what were the decisive factors for the location decision.
New Worlds Of Work.
The Campus for Autonomous Driving offers the developers a modern new work environments: an open space concept, intelligent and flexible use of office space, a multi-faceted and creative work environment. The benefits for professionals are obvious: flexibility, efficiency, high responsibility and short distances. So, for example, a software developer can test on the new Campus just written Code immediately and with just a few steps in the vehicle.
New worlds of work associated with a new agile working and management culture: managers work on the same open office space as the employees. This encourages networking, facilitates communication and contributes to effective collaboration in the development of a highly complex product.
Campus as the tip of the spear for agile Work.
The open campus structure provides the optimum environment for agile work models. They represent an important building block for a sustainable and efficient development. The BMW Group is the first company in the automotive industry, the agile work models consistently across the country for several subject areas apply: From research to series development, the entire development of driver assistance systems and Autonomous is to Drive in these new structures.
This small, multidisciplinary Feature Teams and individual sub-editing processes on their own responsibility and End-to-End. Due to their high flexibility, they can respond quickly and effectively to new requirements.
The entire software development process thus, on the one hand, to speed and on the other hand, have an extremely high complexity.
In times of disruptive change the automotive industry, where the competitive environment with new players is becoming more and more complex, the timing in innovation massively increasing, and young professionals, the attractiveness of the employer to define the future capability, modern working environment, flexible and agile work processes, is a modern development site as the new Campus for the Autonomous decisive for the future and capacity for innovation of the company.
BMW Group High-Performance D3 platform (photo: BMW AG)
