Mercedes Completes 100km Public Drive of Autonomous S-Class in Germany

MercedesMercedes-BenzGermany, 1924 > present197 models
9852 photos
33 videos
has reached a company and technological milestone by driving a specially outfitted S500Mercedes-Benz S 500 SWBGermany, 2014 > present Intelligent Drive 100km autonomously from Mannheim to Pforzheim on city roads and highways. It is the same route that Bertha Benz took on the first long-distance car drive in 1888. The car had to deal with traffic lights, roundabouts, pedestrians, cyclists and streetcars with no human intervention. Though, there was a person in the car for the whole time in case it needed assistance.

"Of course, it would have been a lot easier to take the autobahn for the autonomous drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim. But there was a special motivation for us to carry out this autonomous drive along this very route 125 years after Bertha Benz. After all, we wouldn't be Mercedes-Benz unless we set ourselves challenging goals and then went on to achieve them,” said Daimler Chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche.

Mercedes says that the technology used on the car is production-based and not that far away from being on a road car. Mercedes had three test vehicles based on the E-Mercedes-Benz E-Class Gen.5Germany, 2009 > present345 versions
755 photos
and S-ClassMercedes-Benz S-Class 6Germany, 2014 > present39 versions
113 photos
testing on the route since early 2012 and testing several technologies. Over time, Mercedes added more and upgraded sensors to get to the S500 Intelligent Drive.

The S500 Intelligent Drive had all of the semi-autonomous technology from the current S-Class and a host of other upgrades. The car is taking in 300 gigabytes of data every hour. They included a larger distance between the stereo cameras to detect objects at greater distances, two additional long-range radars, an additional short-range radar at each corner of the car, an added color camera to monitor traffic lights and a rear-facing camera to monitor the environment and compare with what the front camera is seeing to make the navigation system more accurate.

The car also had cutting-edge digital maps that included the road layout, number of lanes, direction of traffic, traffic signs and traffic lights.

The German Federal Highway Research Institute has defined three levels of autonomous driving. Partially automated driving means that drivers must constantly monitor the automatic functions. This technology already exists on the E-Class and S-Class with their adaptive cruise control with steering exist.

The second level is highly automated driving where the driver does not have to constantly monitor the systems and can do non-driving-related activities on a limited basis. The system that Mercedes is using in the S-Class Intelligent Drive falls into this category. The car can drive itself, but the driver must pay attention.

The third level is fully automated driving, which means that the car is completely autonomous and can cope with every situation. The driver does not need to monitor the system or pay attention to the road. This is Mercedes’ goal eventually for its cars, but it is still far in the future.