At Hannover Messe, Microsoft and the BMW Group announced a new community initiative to enable faster, more cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing production and profitability can be hindered by complex, proprietary systems that create data silos and slow productivity. The Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) is designed to break... Read more →

An the 2019 Hannover Messe, Ericsson, together with Audi and Sick (a leading provider of sensors for industrial automation), is demonstrating human-robot interaction in real time using 5G. In the future, wireless production robots and employees will work hand in hand. Real-time interaction is essential for smooth collaboration. The key... Read more →

Volkswagen and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will develop the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud together. Both companies announced a multi-year, global agreement jointly to develop this project. In the future, the Volkswagen Industrial Cloud will combine the data of all machines, plants and systems from all 122 facilities of the Volkswagen Group.... Read more →

Entering into a strategic partnership, Volkswagen and Microsoft Corp. will collaborate to develop the ‘Volkswagen Automotive Cloud’, one of the largest dedicated automotive industry clouds for all future Volkswagen digital services and mobility offerings. With Microsoft as its strategic partner, Volkswagen is taking a decisive step in its digital transformation... Read more →

A.P. Moller–Maersk and IBM announced the creation of TradeLens, jointly developed by the two companies to apply blockchain to the world’s global supply chain. TradeLens is a blockchain-enabled shipping solution designed to promote more efficient and secure global trade, bringing together various parties to support information sharing and transparency. IBM... Read more →

China-based Didi Chuxing, the world’s leading one-stop mobile transportation platform, and Booking Holdings, a global leader in online accommodations and travel e-commerce, have entered into a strategic partnership. Booking Holdings has invested US$500 million in DiDi, recognizing DiDi as a leader in the mobile transportation industry. Under the partnership, DiDi... Read more →

The DS 7 CROSSBACK is the first Groupe PSA vehicle using the PSA IoT “Connected Vehicle Modular Platform” (CVMP) and equipped with Huawei technology for new connected services. DS 7 CROSSBACK is the first tangible result of the partnership announced in November 2017 between Huawei and Groupe PSA covering all... Read more →

DENSO Corporation and Toyota Tsusho Corporation will conduct the first test using a quantum computer to process data from a traffic IoT platform. The companies will process vehicle location and travel data in real-time from about 130,000 commercial vehicles in Thailand, aiming to establish best practices for quantum computer applications... Read more →

by Irina Slav for Oilprice.com While OPEC mulls over further steps to once again support falling oil prices, tech startups are quietly ushering in a new era in oil and gas: the era of the digital oil field. Much talk has revolved around how software can completely transform the energy... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation and Hitachi, Ltd. will collaborate to build a high-efficiency production model using an IoT (Internet of Things) platform. These two companies will conduct verification at Toyota’s model plants (Toyota, Aichi Prefecture) starting from this October. Through this verification, they intend to establish a platform using Hitachi’s IoT... Read more →

INFINITI LAB Toronto, an Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities accelerator program from premium car brand INFINITI, announced the nine startups that will participate in the inaugural four-week accelerator program in Toronto. The nine participating startups have raised $2.7 million in funding between them, and during the program they... Read more →

In Spain, in conjunction with the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Peugeot unveiled its INSTINCT plug-in hybrid concept, a Shooting Brake which offers the option of fully autonomous driving. However, the driver remains fully in control at all times and is able to determine whether he or she has... Read more →

Audi has won the Logistics Award for 2017 from the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) in recognition of its FTS driverless vehicle transport system. The autonomously operating system has been in production operation at the Ingolstadt site since the beginning of the year. The parking robot, RAY, from... Read more →

Audi is developing a new modular assembly principle intended as the enabler of the post-production line assembly era. Modular assembly—intended to address the need for growing complexity and flexibility in production—breaks up the traditional fixed-rhythm production line into individual process steps. In the latest issue of Audi Encounter, Fabian Rusitschka,... Read more →

IBM and BMW Group researchers are collaborating to explore the role of Watson cognitive computing in personalizing the driving experience and creating more intuitive driver support systems for cars of the future. As part of an agreement between the two companies, the BMW Group will collocate a team of researchers... Read more →

Audi has begun using smart gloves from Munich-based startup ProGlove in its international logistics department at the Audi plant in Ingolstadt, where the group handles the worldwide dispatch of car components. The glove—named “Mark”—has an embedded barcode scanner on its back; employees trigger the scanning function by pressing the thumb... Read more →

Samsung Electronics will acquire HARMAN for $112.00 per share in cash, or total equity value of approximately $8.0 billion. Upon closing, the transaction will immediately give Samsung a significant presence in the large and rapidly growing market for connected technologies, particularly automotive electronics, which has been a strategic priority for... Read more →

Dürr has introduced its next-generation of painting robot: the new Ecopaint Robot. With its greater kinematic freedom, the EcoRP E043i model with its seven-axis kinematic system enlarges the work zone and can eliminate the need for a linear displacement rail. This can significantly reduce investment and maintenance costs in the... Read more →

Intel is developing a new processor series dedicated for automotive applications. The A3900 series will enable a complete software-defined cockpit solution that incudes in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), digital instrument clusters and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)—all in a single, compact and cost-effective SoC. Intel announced the new automotive processor family along... Read more →

Twelve months after the launch of the “Digital Motorway Test Bed” in Germany, Audi is presenting new technologies for piloted driving and Car-to-X-communication at the German Federal Ministry of Transport. Audi is involved in six projects on the test bed; three of them focus on structural measures; the remaining three... Read more →

NVIDIA and FANUC Corporation are collaborating to implement artificial intelligence on the FANUC Intelligent Edge Link and Drive (FIELD) system to increase robotics productivity and bring new capabilities to automated factories worldwide. Adding AI to the FIELD system will give robots the ability to teach themselves to do tasks faster... Read more →

Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) announced new collaborations with AT&T and Microsoft Corporation with the goal of delivering further enhancements to its Detroit Connect suite of connected vehicle services. (Earlier post.) AT&T will provide cellular service for the new Detroit Connect Truck Data Center, an intelligent piece of hardware that... Read more →

Leading automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler has signed a multi-year strategic partnership agreement with IBM to accelerate the digital transformation of its entire operations and customer solutions using Watson’s cognitive intelligence and insight from billions of sensors that make up the Internet of Things (IoT). Schaeffler manufactures millions of precision-engineered... Read more →

Audi is further expanding its worldwide production network with the opening of the company’s first automobile plant on the North American continent. This will be the first time the company has produced a model for the global market at a location outside of the European continent. Audi will produce the... Read more →

At the IAA Commercial Vehicles 2016 show in Hanover, Volkswagen Truck & Bus is presenting itself to the public for the first time as a group of strong brands: MAN, Scania, Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. In addition to numerous new products, Volkswagen Truck & Bus is... Read more →

The BMW Group has introduced a fully-automated, optical measuring cell in its pilot plant in Munich. Freely moving robot arms use sensors to create a three-dimensional image of an entire vehicle and generate a 3D data model from the data captured, with an accuracy of less than 100 µm. This... Read more →

Internet of Things (IoT) platform company Drayson Technologies is partnering with Inmarsat and courier company Gophr to capture real-time data on carbon monoxide pollution levels in London. A recent report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) estimated that around... Read more →

Porsche has officially dedicated a new engine plant for eight-cylinder engines. The factory at the main site in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen works with state-of-the-art production methods, leveraging digitalization and data management. At full plant utilization produces around 200 eight-cylinder V-engines daily. The sports car manufacturer has invested nearly €80 million in the... Read more →

At an event in Washington, President Obama announced that the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) will lead the new Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, in partnership with the Department of Energy. The winning coalition, headquartered in Los Angeles, California brings together a consortium of nearly 200 partners from across academia, industry,... Read more →

Local Motors, creator of the first 3D-printed cars (earlier post), introduced the first self-driving vehicle to integrate the advanced cognitive computing capabilities of IBM Watson. The vehicle, dubbed “Olli,” will be used on public roads locally in Washington DC, and late in 2016 in Miami-Dade County, Florida and Las Vegas,... Read more →

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and KDDI Corporation (KDDI) are partnering to establish a global communications platform to enable the operation of communications networks throughout the world to support car connectivity. Toyota aims to bring greater connectivity to its vehicles throughout the world. To do so, a broad-reaching, robust communications platform... Read more →

The RoMulus (Robust multi-sensor technology for status monitoring in Industry 4.0 applications) research project project sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is focused on simplifying and accelerating the development and use of intelligent multi-sensor systems for Industry 4.0——the digitalization of production processes based on devices... Read more →

Volkswagen has opened a competence center for technology and innovation and its Wolfsburg plant. Volkswagen employees will develop and test new production technologies on-site in the center’s near-production environment. The innovation center has six sections: digital way; human-machine interaction (HMI); material flow and material handling; body construction; assembly; and ergonomics.... Read more →

Members of AVnu Alliance, the industry consortium driving open, standards-based deterministic networking (earlier post), publicly demonstrated interoperability of systems designed to meet the AVnu Automotive Profile at the Automotive Ethernet Congress held in Munich, Germany earlier this year. The demo featured products and solutions from several AVnu Alliance members: Ixia,... Read more →

Nissan Motor Company, Savari, UC Berkeley Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH), and the City of Sunnyvale have collaborated on a real-world V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) testbed spanning 4.63 square miles with three public intersections in Sunnyvale, California. The City of Sunnyvale pilot is examining the role of V2X communications and its... Read more →

ABI Research has defined six transformative paradigms for the automotive industry over the next 25 years: the software-defined car; sensors and big data; the connected car; cooperative mobility and the IoT; electrification; and car sharing/driverless cars. While the first three phases are already underway, the latter three will start to... Read more →

Honda R&D is monitoring and analyzing data from more than 160 sensors in Formula One (F1) cars using IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Drivers and crews can apply data and analytics in real-time to help streamline performance and improve fuel efficiency, enabling drivers to make real-time racing decisions... Read more →

The European Parliament has release an analysis of the Industry 4.0 Initiative—the digitalization of production processes based on devices autonomously communicating with each other along the value chain. It considers the potential of the initiative and business paradigm changes and impacts of this transformation. The study assesses the rationale for... Read more →

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, joined by Barbara Bennett, President and COO of Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. and Rick Clemmer CEO of NXP Semiconductors, announced the seven finalists for the US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Smart City Challenge. (Earlier post.) The USDOT has pledged up to $40 million (funding... Read more →

US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx launched a Smart City Challenge to create a fully integrated, first-of-its-kind city that uses data, technology and creativity to shape how people and goods move in the future. The USDOT will make an award of up to $40 million to one mid-sized city that can... Read more →

Potentially unsafe mental distractions for drivers can persist for as long as 27 seconds after dialing, changing music or sending a text using voice commands, according to a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety by University of Utah researchers. The researchers discovered the residual effects... Read more →

Jaguar Land Rover and the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are jointly funding an £11-million (US$17-million) research program to develop fully autonomous cars. The research will take place at ten UK universities and the Transport Research Laboratory. As part of its strategic partnership with Jaguar Land Rover,... Read more →

Siemens AG and Cohda Wireless will collaborate in the area of Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I). V2I devices are part of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), which share information between vehicles and roadside infrastructure such as traffic lights. This increases the quality and reliability of information available to drivers about their... Read more →

The US Department of Energy announced up to $70 million in funding (DE-FOA-0001263) for the next Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which will be focused on smart manufacturing. With this investment, the DOE aims to support research and development advancements that can reduce the cost of deployment for technologies such... Read more →