HTR_0109_E_U1-U4_ES.qxd:02_03 Starter.qxd 24.06.

2009 9:25 Uhr Seite 2

The Fascination of Technology — Issue 01/2009

BlueZERO
Customized Electric Drive Technology

Assistance Systems Crash Simulations Light Systems

How radar and video Why virtual dummies make How adaptive light systems
systems are being combined it easier to predict the risk of are making the new E-Class
for safety’s sake injury in crash tests even safer
HTR_0109_E_U1-U4_ES.qxd:02_03 Starter.qxd 24.06.2009 9:25 Uhr Seite 3

A Daimler Brand

The new Efficiency-Class:

204 hp, from 5.3 litres /100 km.
Experience the most efficient E-Class of all time. With an engine range that sets new standards.
The E-Class 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY delivers an impressive performance, with a torque
of 500 Nm. Fuel consumption urban/extra urban/combined: 6.9–7.0/4.4–4.6/5.3–5.5 l/100 km;
combined CO₂ emissions: 139–142 g/km.* Welcome home. www.mercedes-benz.com/e-class
*Figures do not relate to the specific emissions or fuel consumption of any individual vehicle,
do not form part of any offer and are intended solely to aid comparison between different types of vehicle.
HTR_0109_E_Starter_02-03.qxd:02_03 Starter.qxd 24.06.2009 9:29 Uhr Seite 2

HTR 01/2009 Starter 03

STARTER

Thomas Weber, Daimler AG Board of Manage-

ment member responsible for Group Research
and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development

Dear readers, Today, automotive mobility means not only

safety and comfort but also, and above all, efficiency. These
were the principles that helped us develop the universally us-
able diesel engine known as the OM651. The series production
of this new high-tech four-cylinder diesel engine is now in full
swing. First, however, the “world engine” had to demonstrate its
capabilities during some 100,000 hours on the test rig. It suc-
ceeded, and is now spearheading a generation change among
diesel engines. You can read all about the OM651 on page 46.

The future belongs to electric drives, which hold the key to

sustainable individual mobility. Daimler has been investigating
electric drive concepts for years. The most recent example is
the Concept BlueZERO, which is now close to series production
and exemplifies the advantages of the modular system ap-
proach. Starting out with a single bodyshell platform, three dif-
ferent electric drive systems — based on a lithium-ion battery,
a fuel cell stack or a range extender — can be implemented.
This results in vehicle ranges that satisfy all customer require-
ments. To find out more, turn to page 12.

Night rides in the new E-Class from Mercedes-Benz will be

even safer in the future, thanks to new lighting functions. The
Adaptive High Beam Assistant automatically ensures the opti-
mal illumination distance for the headlights. The new Night View
Assist system illuminates the road with a dazzle-free infrared
light and proactively notifies the driver of any pedestrians it
detects in the dark. Both functions complement the tried and
tested Intelligent Light System. You can find out how these sys-
tems make the new E-Class even safer on page 58.

Safety is one of Daimler’s core areas of expertise, so we are

continuously refining our safety assistance systems. For ex-
ample, our researchers have now attained a new dimension of
quality thanks to “sensor fusion.” Here, data from visual and
radar-based systems are used to monitor the car’s surround-
ings, thus greatly enhancing vehicle safety. The car recognizes
impending dangers long before the driver does — and can react
to prevent accidents. You can find out how such systems work
on page 24.
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04 Daimler

ROUTE PLANNER

ELECTRIC DRIVES 12
Concept E
Electric drives are the key to sustainable in-
dividual mobility. Daimler is pursuing various
BlueZERO
concepts here — for example, the BlueZERO
concept car, which is close to series produc-
tion. The vehicle’s three different electric
drives utilize the sandwich floor concept.

ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS CRASH SIMULATION

Detecting Danger Virtual Dummies in Bangalore

Daimler researchers are using radar and
video sensors in conjunction with laser scan-
ners to detect dangers even sooner, more
precisely, and more reliably. The software
that depicts the vehicle’s surroundings in real
time is also becoming more sophisticated.
In this hotspot of the IT sector in India, Daim-
ler engineers create mathematical models
that help them to analyze in detail the strains
to which the human body is subjected by a
simulated crash. The virtual crash dummies
they use are known as human body models.

24 32
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HTR 01/2009
ENGINE DEVELOPMENT
OM651 — the Base Engine
It’s a compact diesel engine that’s universally
usable — in models ranging from the C, E, and
S-Class to the GLK and vans from Mercedes-
Benz. Its technological highlights include
piezo injectors and a two-stage supercharg-
ing unit.
46
24.06.2009 9:30 Uhr
Route Planner
SAFETY
Night Sight
In the new E-Class, night driving will become
even safer. The Adaptive High Beam Assis-
tant automatically sets the optimal illumina-
tion distance for the headlights while the
Night Vision Assistant PLUS actively points
out pedestrians it has detected in the dark.
58
Seite 2
05
DRIVE SYSTEMS
12 The near-series BlueZERO concept
car demonstrates three variants of a
fully practical electric vehicle
46 The OM651 is a universally usable
four-cylinder diesel engine with a
whole host of innovations
INTERVIEW
22 Board of Management member
Thomas Weber talks about Daimler’s
future strategy for research and
development
SAFETY
24 The fusing of several sensors has
made it possible to create increasingly
sophisticated assistance functions
32 Virtual models of the human body
vividly reveal the risk of injury in crash
simulations
58 Variable intelligent headlights are
helping drivers to see much more
clearly in the dark
MOBILITY CONCEPTS
52 In the car2go project in Ulm, smart
fortwo vehicles are not only available
throughout the city; they can also be
rented on the spur of the moment
HEADINGS
03 Starter
06 Interior
08 Showroom
30 Scanner
44 Smooth Running
44 Serial Number/Masthead
66 Reflector
HTR_0109_E_Interieur_06-07.qxd:06_07 Interieur.qxd
06
INTERIOR

FUEL CELLS FOR THE B-CLASS
Daimler has a long history of setting drive
technology milestones. To ensure things
stay that way, the company that invented
the automobile is working hard on devel-
oping electric vehicles that will make zero-
emission mobility possible. One option
here is fuel cell cars such as the B-Class
F-CELL, of which several units will be man-
ufactured this year. Production of the
small-batch series will proceed at a steady
pace, beginning in 2010. As a result,
Daimler will be one of the first automakers
to bring a fuel cell vehicle to the series-
production stage. The B-Class F-CELL ve-
hicles will be assembled at the Sindelfin-
gen plant, where researchers, developers,
and production specialists will be working
hand in hand. Werner Schubert (Develop-
ment Fuel Cell Vehicles, left), Matthias
Scherer (Prototype Construction, center),
and Bruno Motzet (Research/Advanced
Engineering Fuel Cell Systems, right) are
shown here checking a fuel cell stack pri-
or to its installation. Compared to the pre-
vious system in the A-Class, the new stack
has a greater output, a longer range, and
a cold-start capability at temperatures
24.06.2009 9:31 Uhr Seite 1
Daimler
down to minus 25 degrees Celsius. Zero-
emission driving is just one of many rea-
sons for forging ahead with the develop-
ment of fuel cell vehicles. For one thing,
they are much more efficient than vehi-
cles with internal combustion engines.
What’s more, the electric motor doesn’t
just generate impressive acceleration —
it’s also very quiet.
 WEB TIP
In addition to pre-
senting more im-
ages, the website
features brief por-
traits of two re-
search and development units that are
currently working on electric drive sys-
tems, as well as a workshop talk with the
heads of the units, Christian Mohrdieck
(Fuel Cell and Battery Drive System De-
velopment, at left) and Jürgen Schenk
(Development Electric Vehicles).
www.daimler.com/innovation
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HTR 01/2009 Interior 07

HTR_0109_E_Showroom_08-11.qxd:08_11 Showroom.qxd 24.06.2009 9:32 Uhr Seite 1

08 Daimler

SHOWROOM

More Telematics and Infotainment in Cars: Small Turning Radius in

Mobile Internet with myCOMAND São Paulo
In Brazil, the Mercedes-Benz 710
Plus light truck is a top-selling
vehicle. Now it has not only a
new engine with more power and
torque; its turning radius has al-
so been reduced to 13.4 meters.
What’s more, the engineers have
slimmed the truck down, reduc-
ing its width to 2.19 meters. The
possible range of applications for
the light truck has been expand-
ed as a result.
With the “myCOMAND” research project, Mercedes-Benz has “With its new width and a wheel-
launched a new, Internet-based telematics and infotainment system. base of 3.70 meters, the 710
This system shows the functions that drivers will be able to rely on in Plus complies with the specifica-
a few years’ time, when Internet access via radio networks will not tions of São Paulo’s VUC (Urban
only be nearly universal but will also feature substantially higher Freight Vehicles Law). This
bandwidth than is available today. Here, one of myCOMAND’s tasks means it can now be driven in
is to keep all data and information updated via the Web.
The off-board navigation system, for example, always uses the latest
map data and takes into account online traffic report data when se-
lecting driving routes. Alongside the usual road maps, the system
can also display satellite images. The Trip Assist accesses important
information online and presents it to the driver the moment it is need-
ed. It reports the weather conditions along the route and provides
information about hotels and leisure offerings at the destination. In
addition, the World Radio receives broadcasts from radio stations zones that are otherwise closed
all around the world. Drivers can also conduct a targeted search for to trucks,” says Eustáquio Sirolli,
stations that broadcast the kind of music they like. Truck Products Marketing Man-
Thanks to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), Internet telephony with ager at Mercedes-Benz do Brasil.
myCOMAND allows users to make telephone calls free of charge, As a result, transport companies
send text messages via the Internet, or simultaneously transmit and delivery drivers can now de-
speech and data content. ploy the 710 Plus as a delivery
vehicle anywhere in the city of

WEB TIP São Paulo, thereby boosting their
efficiency.
The truck’s efficiency has been
www.daimler.com/innovation further enhanced by the vehicle’s
www.mercedes-benz.com.br/imprensa lower maintenance costs and
www.freightlinertrucks.com new engine, which delivers high-
er performance while consuming
less diesel.
HTR_0109_E_Showroom_08-11.qxd:08_11 Showroom.qxd
HTR 01/2009
A Cruise Control That
Knows the Road
In March 2009 at the Mid-Amer-
ica Trucking Show (MATS), Daim-
ler Trucks North America pre-
sented Predictive Cruise Control
(PCC), a new cruise control sys-
tem that helps to reduce fuel
consumption.
The assistance system, which
was developed by Daimler Re-
search engineers in Stuttgart,
Germany, and Portland, Oregon,
automatically adjusts the truck’s
speed to the route driven, based
on a map- and satellite-based
preview of the roads selected.
Unlike a conventional cruise con-
trol system, which tries to main-
tain a pre-selected speed re-
gardless of the changing
topography, PCC adjusts the en-
gine output in line with ap-
proaching uphill and downhill
stretches.
With the help of GPS technology
and the digitized three-dimen-
sional map data, the assistance
system presented in Freight-
liner’s New Innovation Truck
“knows” that uphill and downhill
gradients are coming when the
truck is still a mile away. Based
on this data, the PPC system de-
termines the appropriate gear
and most fuel-efficient speed.
24.06.2009 9:32 Uhr Seite 2
Showroom 09
Mercedes-Benz Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid: Crash Test and Crumple
Zero-Emission City Driving Zone Milestones
Making consistent progress toward a clean future: In June of this year In June about 1,000 experts
Mercedes-Benz Buses presented its first fuel cell-hybrid bus — the came to Stuttgart, Germany, for
Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid regular-service city bus. Now the new vehi- the 2009 International Technical
cle will be extensively put through its paces during a large-scale fleet Conference on the Enhanced
test, which calls for the bus to be used in regular daily service by Safety of Vehicles (ESV), the
public transport companies. world’s most important conven-
The plans call for a Europe-wide test — similar to the European tion for vehicle safety.
Union’s successful CUTE fleet test — to be conducted in several cities. The experts’ objective was to
As part of CUTE and other projects, 36 Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel promote the sharing of knowl-
cell-powered buses have been delivering top performance for 12 pub- edge worldwide and networking
lic transport companies on three continents since 2003. Altogether, in all areas related to vehicle
the buses have been driven more than two million kilometers during safety. The main focal point in
roughly 135,000 hours of combined operation, impressively proving this field used to be passive safe-
their suitability for everyday use. ty, but driver assistance systems
The new Mercedes-Benz Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid draws on this ex- and an integral approach to safe-
perience. Testing the 36 vehicles provided important findings that ty have been attracting greater
were used in the development of the new drive system. And the bus interest in recent years.
also uses key elements from the Citaro G BlueTec Hybrid. As with In addition to a driver assistance
system demonstrator and a PRE-
SAFE demonstrator, Mercedes-
Benz presented the 2009 Exper-
imental Safety Vehicle (ESV),
which features groundbreaking,
innovative technologies. Daimler
developed the first ESV over 30
years ago. Back then, the vehicle
was already equipped with inno-
vations such as airbags, ABS,
and side impact protection.
Daimler also exhibited a vintage
car whose “genes” are still shap-
ing automotive design today.
the BlueTec bus, the new vehicle’s drive technology was completely Exactly 50 years ago, the world
redesigned. Its main components include axles fitted with electric witnessed the launch of the
hub motors, lithium-ion batteries to store energy, and all electrically Mercedes-Benz W 111 — the first
powered ancillary components. The Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid’s hydro- series-produced vehicle with a
gen consumption is much lower than that of previous fuel cell buses, crumple zone and rigid occupant
thanks to a hybrid drive with a sophisticated drive system control cell. The year 1959 marked not
unit. The biggest plus for passengers is that the Citaro FuelCELL Hy- only the birth of passive safety;
brid not only emits zero pollutants when under way but is also virtu- it also was the year that the then
ally silent. These strengths make it an especially good choice for pub- Daimler-Benz AG conducted the
lic transportation in inner cities. first systematic crash tests.
HTR_0109_E_Showroom_08-11.qxd:08_11 Showroom.qxd 24.06.2009 9:32 Uhr Seite 3

10 Daimler

Improved Aerodynamics Yield Savings: Energy-Saving Prize

The Vito BlueEFFICIENCY Show Car for Hybrid Bus
Saving energy can pay off in
more ways than one. In Japan the
Aero Star Eco Hybrid bus from
Mitsubishi Fuso has been award-
ed the Energy Conservation
Center Chairman’s Prize in
recognition of its impressive fuel
efficiency.
The prize, which is presented by
Japan’s Ministry of Economy,
Trade and Industry (METI), was
conceived to promote public
awareness of energy issues by
supporting the development and
The Vito BlueEFFICIENCY show car presented by Mercedes-Benz is widespread use of systems,
clearly an aerodynamic, economical performer. The concept vehicle technologies, and materials that
shows the development potential of vans. Many of the presented in- have above-average energy sav-
novations will soon be available as standard equipment or options. ings potential.
An aerodynamics package reduces air resistance, and thereby also These are exactly the criteria ful-
consumption. The van’s underbody paneling reduces turbulence, filled, for example, by the Aero
while cameras in place of exterior mirrors ensure improved airflow Star Eco Hybrid bus, which fea-
around the body. The aerodynamics package also includes concealed tures a new hybrid drive that
windshield wipers, a roof with a low-drag plastic surface, recessed consumes little fuel and is very
roof racks, and a rear spoiler lip. In addition, the intelligently designed quiet.
engine cooling system also reduces wind resistance: Three louvers
behind the radiator grille open and close, depending on the vehicle’s
speed and coolant temperature. What’s more, vents in the sides and
floor disperse heat.
The van’s ECO start-stop function turns off the engine as soon as the
vehicle stops moving. This function is integral to the Vito’s battery
and generator management. When the battery is well charged up, Propulsion is provided by a pow-
the generator switches off and the on-board network draws its pow- erful electric motor that draws
er from the battery. The battery charges when the vehicle is being its electricity from a battery and
braked or coasting. A six-speed manual transmission with a wide gear a generator, which is powered by
ratio spread makes it possible to smoothly start off uphill in a loaded a small diesel engine and runs in
van. The long ratio of the sixth gear lowers the rpm at higher speeds, an economical low-rpm range.
thus reducing fuel consumption. The van’s tires are designed to re- Whenever battery recharging is-
duce rolling resistance, while the LED headlights and tail lights re- n’t needed, the combustion en-
quire less electricity, which saves fuel. gine is switched off. As a result,
The savings potential of the Vito BlueEFFICIENCY includes lower fu- the hybrid bus can be driven in
el consumption of up to 1.5 liters per 100 kilometers and a CO2 emis- zero-emission electric mode for
sions reduction of as much as 40 grams per kilometer. a while.
HTR_0109_E_Showroom_08-11.qxd:08_11 Showroom.qxd
HTR 01/2009
Highly Streamlined
E-Class Coupe
The new E-Class coupe com-
bines emotion and efficiency.
Boasting a classic coupe profile
that dispenses with a B-pillar, the
two-door model offers a particu-
larly sporty interpretation of the
dynamic design of the new E-
Class. But the following number
proves that the car is more than
just good -looking: With a Cd val-
ue of 0.24, the E 250 CDI Blue-
EFFICIENCY is the world’s most
aerodynamically efficient series
production car. The coupe also
plays a pioneering role in terms
of drive systems, thanks to its
new direct-injection diesel and
gasoline engines. The line-up in-
cludes two new four-cylinder en-
gines that consume up to 17 per-
cent less fuel while offering
significantly higher power and
torque. The best example is the E
250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY coupe,
which consumes 5.1 liters per
100 kilometers. That corre-
sponds to CO2 emissions of 135
grams per kilometer.
24.06.2009 9:32 Uhr Seite 4
Showroom 11
The New Gullwing from The F-CELL Roadster and the Trainees:
Mercedes-Benz High Tech and Heritage
For the first time in its history, More than 150 trainees at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen,
AMG — the Mercedes-Benz per- Germany, collaborated with students for about a year on an un-
formance car brand — has un- precedented project — the F-CELL Roadster. The eye-catching vehi-
veiled a vehicle developed in cle is unique because it combines the latest technologies with the
house: the Mercedes-Benz SLS heritage of automaking. The primary aim of the project was practical
AMG. integration of alternative drives into the training of tomorrow’s auto-
The super sports car features an motive industry professionals.
impressive and unique technolo- Reminiscent of the Benz Patent Motor Car of 1886, the F-CELL Road-
gy package: an aluminum body ster is equipped with large, spoked wheels. The vehicle also features
with gullwing doors, a top-per- styling elements from a wide range of vehicle eras. These include
formance AMG 6.3-liter front- the carbon shell seats with hand-stitched leather upholstery and the
mid V8 engine with 420 kW (571 distinctive, Formula 1-style fiberglass nose.
hp) and dry sump lubrication, The vehicle is steered by means of a joystick and drive-by-wire. Pow-
seven-speed dual-clutch trans- er is provided by a zero-emission fuel cell system, which is mounted
mission in transaxle configura- at the rear. With a power output of 1.2 kilowatts, the white roadster
tion, and a sports chassis with has a maximum speed of 25 kilometers per hour and a range of up
aluminum parallelogram suspen- to 350 kilometers.
sion. The car’s ideal weight dis-
tribution between the front and
rear axles (48 to 52 percent re-
spectively) and its low center of
gravity emphasize the uncom-
promising sports car concept.
The chassis and body are made
entirely of aluminum, ensuring
significant weight savings com-
pared to the traditional steel con-
struction — the car’s curb weight
is only 1,620 kilograms. The ex-
clusive aluminum spaceframe
combines intelligent, lightweight
design with high strength to de-
liver outstanding handling.
It goes without saying that the
SLS AMG satisfies all safety re-
WEB TIP
quirements and all expectations
when it comes to the high-quali-
ty body typical of Mercedes- www.mercedes-benz.com
Benz. The car will be undergoing www.mitsubishi-fuso.com
intensive vehicle testing until the www.daimler.com/innovation
end of 2009; its market launch is
planned for spring 2010.
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12 Daimler

ELECTRIC DRIVES

CONCEPT E
The future belongs to electric drives, which are the key to sustainable individual
mobility. Daimler has been pursuing corresponding concepts for a number of
years now, and many of them have made their way into vehicles. The most recent
example is the Concept BlueZERO. The near-series concept car can be equipped
with three different electric drive systems.

Text Roland Bischoff

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HTR 01/2009 Electric Drives 13

The Mercedes-Benz Concept BlueZERO is a

near-series car. Spacious seating for five
occupants and over 500 liters of luggage
space underscore its everyday practicality.
HTR_0109_E_Blue Zero_12-21.qxd:12_21 Blue Zero.qxd
14
A
distinctive radiator grille with a large
star in the middle. Dynamic lateral
lines on the flanks. A metallic-painted
body that exudes power and excitement.
There is no debating that with this car, the
Concept BlueZERO, Mercedes-Benz is re-
defining its familiar design idiom. What’s
more, the dynamic exterior design symbol-
izes innovative forms of mobility that will be
based on electric cars.
In a figurative sense, the near-series concept
car represents the sustainable concepts with
which Mercedes-Benz is showing the way for-
ward when it comes to environmentally re-
sponsible electric mobility. “The flexible
BlueZERO concept basically allows electric
mobility for every requirement,” says Thomas
Weber, the Daimler AG Board member re-
sponsible for Group Research and Mercedes-
Benz Cars Development. “It also highlights
the fact that Mercedes-Benz is the only au-
tomaker to already have all the key tech-
nologies for electric cars that are suitable for
everyday use.”
Modular construction kit The BlueZERO
concept car kills three birds with one stone.
Three models with different electric drives
can be produced on the basis of a single ve-
hicle architecture — the sandwich floor from
the A-Class and B-Class. But the design en-
gineers behind the flexible vehicle concept
are interested in more than just the technical
aspects of installing an electric motor in a car
body. “Where will the electricity that powers
the car come from, for example? How does it
24.06.2009 9:39 Uhr Seite 3
Daimler
get into the vehicle? And how sustainable are
these energy sources?” These are the ques-
tions asked by the engineers who are work-
ing intensively on new drives, while under
tremendous pressure in all matters related
to electric cars.
Flexible high-tech trio The modular concept
of the BlueZERO has resulted in a spirited trio
that can truly fulfill every customer require-
“We have the technologies for electric
cars that are suitable for everyday use”
Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG
ment in terms of sustainable mobility. All
three models are packed with state-of-the-
art technology, including liquid-cooled lithi-
um-ion batteries with up to 35 kilowatt-hours
of storage capacity. As is typical for this class
of car, all three feature front-wheel drive. The
compact electric motor between the front
wheels has a maximum output of 100 kilo-
watts, continuous output of 70 kilowatts, and
peak torque of 320 newton-meters. All three
of the variants can accelerate from zero to
100 kilometers per hour in less than 11 sec-
onds. The top speed is electronically limited
to 150 kilometers per hour to ensure optimal
cruising range and energy efficiency.
HTR_0109_E_Blue Zero_12-21.qxd:12_21 Blue Zero.qxd 24.06.2009
HTR 01/2009

FOCUS
FROM EXPERIMENT TO PRODUCTION
2009
is the year in which Daimler suc-
ceeds in establishing further mile-
stones in sustainable mobility. First,
the B-Class F-Cell marks the start
of small-batch series production
London
£8
a day is saved on London’s streets
by each of the 100 smart electric
drives in the fleets of selected
customers. Their environmentally
friendly battery drive system
exempts them from the congestion
charge. Launched in 2007, the pilot
project has yielded a wealth of
expertise for Daimler engineers.
9:40 Uhr Seite 4
Electric Drives
of a fuel cell-powered electric car.
Second, production of approximate-
ly 1,000 units of the second-genera-
tion smart fortwo electric drive is
scheduled to begin toward the end
of the year. The small cars will be
equipped with lithium-ion batteries
from Tesla. As part of a strategic
alliance, Daimler has acquired a
stake in Tesla Motors, one of the
leading manufacturers of electric
cars. The young, dynamic company
based in San Carlos, California, is
currently the only manufacturer
selling a battery-powered car in
North America and Europe that is
designed for long-range driving.
The two companies have agreed to
Berlin
≈ 500
charging stations in Berlin ensure
that more than 100 electric cars
from Mercedes-Benz and smart can
be “filled up” with electricity. One of
the world’s largest pilot projects
with battery-powered vehicles is to
begin in the city in late 2009. It is
expected to yield advances in vehi-
cle technology and infrastructure.
15
MILESTONES
collaborate on integration of the
lithium-ion batteries and on the
charging units for the 1,000 smarts.
The agreement calls for the two
partners to cooperate more closely
on the development of battery sys-
tems, electric drives, and individual
vehicle projects so that they can
mutually benefit from their respec-
tive areas of expertise. “Our strate-
gic partnership is an important step
for accelerating the commercializa-
tion of electric drive systems world-
wide,” reports Thomas Weber,
Daimler Board of Management
member responsible for Group
Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars
Development.
Milan
>100
electric cars from Mercedes-Benz
and smart will take to the streets
of Rome, Milan, and Pisa beginning
in 2010 when Daimler launches its
next electric mobility project in co-
operation with Enel, Italy’s largest
energy utility. Enel will set up more
than 400 special charging stations
in the three cities.
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16 Daimler

FOCUS

The sandwich floor-based vehicle architecture makes it possible to realize MODULES

three models with different energy sources for the electric motor:

E-CELL E-CELL Plus F-CELL

with battery with battery and gasoline with hydrogen

High-voltage Internal combustion High-voltage Fuel cell

battery Charger engine with fuel tank Charger battery stack

Electric High-voltage Electric Hydrogen Electric

motor battery motor tank motor
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HTR 01/2009 Electric Drives 17

The near-series Concept BlueZERO stands

for environmentally friendly electric mobility.
Mercedes-Benz introduced the sandwich
floor back in 1997, with an eye toward
integration of alternative drive systems.
HTR_0109_E_Blue Zero_12-21.qxd:12_21 Blue Zero.qxd 24.06.2009 9:43 Uhr Seite 7

18 Daimler

RESPONSE TIME

90 sec. with…
^ HERBERT KOHLER

Herbert Kohler is Vice President E-Drive & Future Mobility in Group

Research & Advanced Engineering at Daimler, which is developing
technologies including battery-electric and fuel-cell drives. Kohler
has been with the company since 1976. In 1992 he oversaw the
founding of the Environment, Technology and Transportation
Center. From August 2006 to March 2009, he served as Head of
Group Research & Advanced Engineering Body and Powertrain. He
became Daimler Chief Environmental Officer in 2002.

00s Mr. Kohler, the three BlueZERO concepts all have different ranges. In the future, will
customers have to decide whether they need their car for city, intercity, or long-dis-
tance driving before they make a purchase? No. The three concepts demonstrate three
different drive technologies. We will never achieve the long ranges of today’s touring sedans
in pure electric mode, but the range extender gives you total flexibility. The only thing limit-
ed here is the emissions-free range. In the medium and long term, you will be able to cover
the same distances with a fuel cell as you can now with internal combustion engines.

24s Do you see a need for concrete steps to address the everyday practicality of electric
and fuel cell vehicles? Besides the affordability of electric and fuel cell vehicles, there are
two concerns above all: First, customers need to feel certain that a sufficient infrastructure
in terms of recharging and hydrogen filling stations will be available to them. Second,
Europe-wide standards need to be established to ensure that you can fill up and recharge in
France, Hungary, Norway, or Greece.

45s How can Daimler help to solve these problems? Some of them are beyond your
control. In the pilot projects on which we collaborate with partners, each party contributes
its know-how and expertise so that together we can offer practical solutions for our cus-
tomers. As our collaborations with RWE show, we are on the right track with our involve-
ment.

63s So far internal combustion engines have been a key technology for Daimler. Will you
also produce electric motors and batteries in the future? As far as batteries are con-
cerned, we’ll decide step by step. Don’t forget that the entire automotive industry is facing
a paradigm shift — from fossil energy sources in internal combustion engines to electrifica-
tion and beyond to zero-emissions fuel cell drive systems. We are well-positioned with inter-
nal combustion engines and electric motors. Our internal combustion engines are subject to
a continuous improvement process. We have successfully put electric vehicles on the road
in a number of pilot projects. To devote even more attention to electrification, all R&D activ-

90s
ities in this field were consolidated at the beginning of April 2009 in the E-Drive & Future
Mobility unit, which I head.
HTR_0109_E_Blue Zero_12-21.qxd:12_21 Blue Zero.qxd 24.06.2009 9:44 Uhr
HTR 01/2009
The BlueZERO E-CELL concept represents
a vehicle concept that is generally accepted
as “the” electric car. The E-CELL, which of-
fers an electric range of up to 200 kilome-
ters, has an electric traction motor and a bat-
tery that can be recharged at conventional
power outlets.
The BlueZERO F-CELL is equipped with a
hydrogen-powered fuel cell system that sup-
plies the electricity for the electric motor. It
achieves a range of well over 400 kilometers
on a single tank of hydrogen with zero emis-
sions according to the standardized New Eu-
ropean Driving Cycle (NEDC).
“I can assure you that we are not
about to run out of ideas”
Herbert Kohler, Vice President E-Drive & Future Mobility
The BlueZERO E-CELL PLUS has an electric
drive motor and a 17.5 kilowatt-hour lithium-
ion battery supplemented by an internal com-
bustion engine that drives a 50 kilowatt
alternator, when necessary. This range ex-
tender allows for a range of up to 600 kilo-
meters. Up to 100 kilometers are possible in
purely electric mode, which is free of local
emissions. The developers selected the one-
Seite 8
Electric Drives 19
liter turbocharged gasoline engine from the
smart fortwo, which produces 50 kilowatts
at a constant 3,500 rpm.
Powerful lithium-ion battery A core com-
ponent of modern electric drives are high-
performance lithium-ion batteries. Mer-
cedes-Benz was the first carmaker to install
such batteries in a production vehicle, the
S 400 BlueHYBRID. “The BlueZERO concept
also benefits from this battery know-how,”
says Christian Mohrdieck, who heads the
Fuel Cell and Battery Drive System Develop-
ment department at Daimler Research & Ad-
vanced Engineering. With a charging capaci-
ty of 15 kilowatts, the lithium-ion batteries
used in the E-CELL and E-CELL Plus can store
enough energy within 30 minutes for a range
of 50 kilometers. Purely electric ranges of
100 or 200 kilometers require recharging
times of one and two hours, respectively.
Both of these BlueZERO variants are
equipped with an electronic control unit that
supports intelligent charging stations and
billing systems.
There still remains a lot of research and de-
velopment to be done in the field of battery
technology. Daimler is collaborating here
with partners in the business and the scien-
tific communities. The company and Evonik
Industries are both stakeholders in the firm
Li-Tec, for example. “This company’s busi-
ness objective is to conduct battery cell re-
search, and to develop and produce battery
cells based on lithium-ion technology,” says
HTR_0109_E_Blue Zero_12-21.qxd:12_21 Blue Zero.qxd
20
Mohrdieck. His colleague Jürgen Schenk,
Head of Electric Vehicles Development,
points out the advantages of the BlueZERO
concept: “Compared to electric cars based
on conventional vehicle platforms, the com-
ponents in the sandwich floor allow a low
center of gravity and, consequently, very re-
liable and agile handling.”
No compromises Thanks to the sandwich
concept, the BlueZERO, which is only 4.22
meters long, offers the same superior crash
safety as all other Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
Finally, interior space is retained in full since
major drive components are located in the
spacious sandwich floor, eliminating the
need to compromise passenger compart-
ment or trunk space. With five full-size seats,
a payload of approximately 450 kilograms,
and a luggage compartment capacity of more
than 500 liters, all three models are auto-
mobiles that are entirely practical for use un-
der everyday conditions.
Schenk can assuage any fears that, in light
of these advantages, all Mercedes-Benz mod-
els might soon have exactly the same body
concept as the A-Class and B-Class, and that
the classic sedan is on the way out. “The
sandwich floor is a superlative concept fea-
ture, but we are also working on modifica-
tions to it. In the meantime, we have devel-
oped a concept for a ‘sandwich light,’ which
allows us to also integrate this outstanding
idea into other vehicle platforms.”
Strategic concepts As a concept car, the
BlueZERO showcases the drive and design
concepts of the future. The B-Class F-CELL
is very much anchored in the present: A
small-batch production run of a model with
a lithium-ion battery is scheduled to begin in
2009. The group’s sustainability concept al-
so includes fuel cell drive systems for com-
mercial vehicles. The Citaro FuelCELL Hybrid
city bus (see p. 9, Showroom), is equipped
with two fuel cell systems that are identical
to those in the B-Class F-CELL.
Daimler’s fuel cell fleet has so far been driv-
en a combined total of 4.4 million kilometers
under everyday conditions. Additional vehi-
cles will follow. Ten of the latest generation
fuel cell buses and 20 B-Class F-CELL vehi-
cles will hit the streets of Hamburg, Ger-
many, in 2010. And by 2015, as many as
24.06.2009 9:46 Uhr Seite 9
Daimler
1,000 fuel cell vehicles could be under way in
Hamburg — provided there will be more pub-
lic hydrogen filling stations than the four that
have initially been planned. This is why Daim-
ler is supporting establishment of the re-
quired infrastructure; such activities are also
part of the concept for sustainable electric
mobility. This concept is also being devel-
oped in a cooperative effort by the business
and scientific communities. The Karlsruhe In-
stitute of Technology (KIT) and Daimler es-
tablished the “e-drive Project House” in late
2008, for example. This unique pooling of
electric drive expertise is expected to signif-
icantly accelerate the time it takes to bring
new electric and hybrid vehicles to market.
Long-term support Daimler is also involved
in the National Electromobility Development
Plan of the German federal government,
which has incorporated this topic into its en-
ergy and climate program. “Electromobility
is also an integral component of our drive
system strategy,” says Herbert Kohler, Vice
President E-Drive & Future Mobility. “Our ex-
perience with emissions-free driving is more
comprehensive than that of any other au-
tomaker worldwide, so we will provide long-
term support to this initiative.”
 WEB TIP
Daimler researchers
and developers col-
laborate to prepare
electric drives for
the series produc-
tion stage. You can
read more about
their work in HTR
online, where you
will also find more information on the
Mercedes-Benz Concept BlueZERO.
Dynamic Styling: The Design of the
Concept BlueZERO
Yellow Angel Award for the Lithium-
ion Battery from Mercedes-Benz
Video: The Lithium-Ion Battery
Booklet: Electric Drive: The Age of
Electric Mobility Begins
Video: Concept BlueZERO — The
Evolution of a Vision Striking taillights: Thanks to the body’s
distinctive design, the progressive
www.daimler.com/innovation
character of the Concept BlueZERO is
obvious at a glance.
HTR_0109_E_Blue Zero_12-21.qxd:12_21 Blue Zero.qxd 24.06.2009 9:48 Uhr Seite 10

HTR 01/2009 Electric Drives 21

“Our units cooperate just like

in traditional vehicle development”

Jürgen Schenk, Electric Vehicles Development

Christian Mohrdieck, Fuel Cell and Battery Drive System Development
HTR_0109_E_Interview_22-23.qxd:22_23 Interview.qxd 24.06.2009 9:51 Uhr Seite 1

22 Daimler

INTERVIEW

We’re Staying
on Course!
Innovations in a time of new beginnings:
An interview with Thomas Weber, Daimler AG Board
of Management member responsible for Group
Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development
HTR_0109_E_Interview_22-23.qxd:22_23 Interview.qxd 24.06.2009 9:51 Uhr
HTR 01/2009
The name “Daimler” is synonymous with innovative
vehicle design. In the current economic situation,
everyone is having to cut costs — and this applies es-
pecially to the automotive industry. Does this mean
that Daimler will be less innovative in the future?
Thomas Weber: Certainly not. The name “Daimler” has
always been synonymous with innovation, safety, and
comfort. This will continue to be the case in the future. As
the inventor of the automobile, we have always set the
milestones for safety and assistance systems, and we will
continue to do so. We are leading the way when it comes
to researching and developing alternative drive systems
— not only with regard to passenger cars but also com-
mercial vehicles. For example, every day our hybrid bus-
es ferry thousands of people safely to their destinations
worldwide in an environmentally friendly manner. We are
also striking out in new directions to realize mobility con-
cepts for the future — for example, with our car2go proj-
ects in Ulm, Germany, and Austin, Texas. We will contin-
ue to be innovative, but in the current situation we will
have to use the available means more efficiently and in
a more targeted manner.
In view of the necessary economizing measures, is it
possible to reach the ambitious goals that have been
set for research and development?
Thomas Weber: I’d like to emphasize that we’re staying
on course! Especially in times like these, we have to con-
tinue implementing the strategies that are crucial to our
company’s future success. For those of us at Group Re-
search and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development, this pri-
marily means further promoting green technologies, im-
plementing our vision of accident-free driving, and
developing fascinating and innovative vehicles of out-
standing quality. We don’t plan to cut corners when it
comes to honing our ability to face tomorrow’s challenges.
On the contrary, we’re keeping our foot on the gas.
But in order to reach such ambitious goals you’ll
need some financial leeway, won’t you?
Thomas Weber: That’s right. One way to reach our goals
will be to cut costs by further boosting our efficiency. For
example, we’ve just combined all of our research and de-
velopment activities related to electric mobility in a new
research department called “E-Drive & Future Mobility.”
This will enable us to develop modules in a uniform man-
ner according to the one-source principle. That way we’ll
put our innovative electric mobility technologies on the
road not only faster but also more cost-efficiently. And
that’s good news for all of Daimler’s divisions. Alongside
passenger cars, vans, trucks and buses will also benefit.
You’ve mentioned e-drive and the sustainable mo-
bility of the future. Can you briefly describe how
we’re going to get there?
Thomas Weber: The automotive industry is on the
threshold of a paradigm shift. One stage of the road to
Seite 2
Interview 23
sustainable mobility is the consistent enhancement of
our highly efficient combustion engines. Take for exam-
ple our new four-cylinder diesel engine, the OM651,
which powers the new E-Class and reduces fuel con-
sumption to around just five liters per 100 kilometers.
Thanks to smart modular hybridization, such high-tech
engines can be made even more efficient. That is a fur-
ther step that we will be taking. The Mercedes-Benz
S 400 HYBRID is a fascinating vehicle that combines en-
vironmental friendliness, safety, and comfort. Our long-
term goal remains zero-emission driving with battery-
powered electric or fuel cell drives. But let me emphasize
that battery-powered and fuel cell-powered drive systems
do not represent alternative development processes. The
two technologies complement each other not only in
terms of their respective ranges. That’s because they
both involve propulsion on the basis of electricity, which
is why we have adopted a modular system approach to-
ward electric transportation. This is impressively demon-
strated by our Concept BlueZERO.
You have already integrated the lithium-ion battery
into a vehicle, but do you have sufficient corporate
know-how to go further with this key technology?
Thomas Weber: We can go much further with it. To-
gether with Evonik we have established Deutsche Accu-
motive GmbH in Nabern, Germany, which makes us the
only automaker worldwide that can develop, produce,
“Electric mobility won’t
be available for everyone
in the short term” Thomas Weber
and sell its own lithium-ion batteries. And through our re-
cent strategic acquisition of a share in Tesla Motors we
have taken a further key step toward accelerating the
worldwide commercialization of electric drive systems.
So there aren’t any further obstacles to zero-emis-
sion driving with electric vehicles?
Thomas Weber: I must strongly warn against false ex-
pectations. Electric mobility won’t be available for every-
one in the short term, but we’re working hard to make it
possible. We’re still talking only about small batches of
fully electric vehicles. The vision of large-scale zero-emis-
sion driving at affordable prices won’t become a reality
overnight. That’s because the challenges associated with
range, infrastructure, recharging time, and uniform serv-
ice station standards must be overcome before electric
mobility becomes a practical everyday option. These are
issues Daimler is addressing. We are systematically form-
ing the partnerships that will be needed here — for exam-
ple, with energy suppliers like RWE, Vattenfall, and Enel,
as well as with oil companies such as Shell and Total.
HTR_0109_E_Radar_24-29.qxd:00_00 Radar.qxd 24.06.2009 9:55 Uhr Seite 1

24 Daimler

ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS

Sensing Safety
Sensors and software monitor the area around the vehicle

Text Rolf Andreas Zell Video Daimler Research

HTR_0109_E_Radar_24-29.qxd:00_00 Radar.qxd 24.06.2009
HTR 01/2009
“Our stereo vision systems are currently near
the top in all the rankings”
Uwe Franke, Image Recognition, Daimler Research
Potential danger at a construction site. A stereo
camera measures the lane width. To reduce the
flood of data and the computing power required,
images are broken down into abstract “stixels.”
9:55 Uhr Seite 2
Assistance Systems
J
ust a second ago, a glance in the side mir-
ror still showed that everything was clear
behind your vehicle. Then, in the blink of
an eye, the driver of a car lurking in the blind
spot behind you honks his horn just as you’re
about to change lanes. Later, you arrive at a
T-junction and look to the right. There’s no
car in sight. It’s the same when you look to
your left. You begin to drive forward, when
suddenly a motorcycle appears out of
nowhere on the main road to your right.
In dense traffic, which can be found today in
all urban areas as well as on highways and
even country roads, a fraction of a second —
and sometimes even only milliseconds — can
mean the difference between reaching our
destination safe and sound or becoming in-
volved in an accident. Loss of time and mon-
ey, and wearisome correspondence with au-
thorities and insurance companies are just
some of the least aggravating consequences
of a traffic accident. Far more serious are the
consequences if a person is killed or injured.
“Nobody’s perfect,” says Uwe Franke. How-
ever, he’s not excusing the little mistakes
that even the most diligent and careful driv-
er makes. Instead, Franke is talking about the
sensors in cars. Franke works at the Image
Recognition department of Daimler Group
Research and Advanced Engineering, where
you could probably best refer to him as “Mr.
Stereo.” For the past 13 years, his team from
the Situation Monitoring unit headed by Ste-
fan Hahn has been working with stereo cam-
eras and developing algorithms that analyze
an ever-increasing number of pixels in video
sequences with greater speed and precision.
The aim of this work is to detect dangerous
situations in this flood of image data. For the
team of experts, the reward of this long-term
work is that Mr. Stereo’s crew has come in
among the top three or even taken first place
in almost all of the discipline’s rankings since
last year.
Despite this success, Franke knows that “no-
body’s perfect,” and Jürgen Dickmann, an-
25
other team leader in Hahn’s department,
adds: “That’s why we use the entire range of
sensors to create synergies.” If you could call
Franke “Mr. Stereo,” Dickmann deserves the
title of “Mr. Radar.” For many years now, his
team from Research and Advanced Engi-
neering has been helping its colleagues from
Vehicle Development to prepare all of the
radar-based safety functions that have so far
found their way into series-produced Mer-
cedes-Benz vehicles. These features range
from Blind Spot Assist and Brake Assist
(BAS) Plus to Pre-SAFE®, which provides cars
with electronic “reflexes” that offer the oc-
cupants additional protection in case of an
impending accident.
The projects, in which the engineers from
Hahn’s department work on the safety func-
tions of the series-produced models of the
future, reveal that Mr. Stereo and Mr. Radar
are apparently busy paving the way for the
merger of their respective teams. Franke’s
maxim that no sensor in the world can detect
all possible dangers perfectly has caused
Hahn’s researchers to pursue a strategy that
has already proven its effectiveness in real-
life situations. After all, even human beings
do not interpret their surroundings with only
one of their senses. Instead, the world comes
alive to people through the senses of sight,
hearing, taste, touch, and smell. People who
are handicapped by the lack of even one of
these senses know how difficult it can be to
offset this deficiency with the remaining
senses.
Merger plans “The merger of the sensors
will improve safety enormously because we
will not detect objects by mistake within the
area that is being monitored,” says Dick-
mann, emphasizing the advantages of this
merger. Although incorrect analyses of video
pixels are rare, they do occur. And although
radar may, in some extremely rare cases, fail
to detect an object, such a blunder cannot
be entirely ruled out. However, as Dickmann
makes mathematically clear, the likelihood
that a video system and a radar system will
simultaneously fail to recognize the same ob-
ject or erroneously “create” an obstacle is
much rarer still — by several orders of mag-
nitude, in fact.
The experts in Hahn’s department are using
this huge gain in sensor accuracy to assign
increasingly “responsible” tasks to sensor-
based assistance systems. Franke demon-
strates this in a video that the researchers
from Ulm recorded during a test at their
HTR_0109_E_Radar_24-29.qxd:00_00 Radar.qxd
26
proving grounds. The video shows a black S-
Class sedan traveling at approximately 50
km/h along the “main street” of the proving
grounds. A mockup car is moved along a still
distant “side street” and made to cross the
main road. Shortly before the S-Class
equipped with radar sensors and stereo cam-
eras reaches the intersection, the mockup is
moved into the path of the sedan at lightning
speed.
Especially high level of safety Even viewers
who are not at the scene can clearly see on
the screen how the S-Class automatically un-
dertakes an emergency braking maneuver
without any action being taken by the driver.
The maneuver that prevented a collision from
occurring at the last moment was initiated by
the S-Class’ onboard computer with practi-
cally no delay after the analysis of the video
and radar images had determined in real time
that the object crossing the road was about
to cause a crash. Hahn’s dry but under-
standable comment on this scene is: “You re-
ally need to have a lot of confidence in your
monitoring system if you let the electronics
independently initiate an emergency braking
maneuver in such a situation.”
Another video clip shows how detailed the in-
formation provided by the sensors actually
is, thanks to the use of sophisticated analy-
sis software. Although Franke calls it “6D vi-
sion,” it has nothing to do with the nth di-
mension of theoretical physics. The video
shows a traffic scene in a residential area,
which is recorded by a stereo camera from
the driver’s point of view. About 20 meters
down the road on the right, a car stops just
before pulling out of a side street. Colorful
pixels on the camera’s grayscale image show
the distance of the pixels from the camera
and therefore from the moving vehicle:
Everything that is marked green is far away,
while orange pixels dominate the middle
ground and objects located directly in front
of the vehicle appear red.
The viewer automatically thinks that he or
she should be careful because the vehicle on
the right might pull out of the side street and
cut off his or her right of way. Something
completely different happens, however, as a
pedestrian suddenly appears directly behind
the motionless vehicle. The next fractions of
a second of the clip show that the pedestri-
an is the real danger as he jogs directly onto
the road. The video image visualizes the
analysis of the stereo camera recording, be-
ginning with the appearance of the pedestri-
24.06.2009 9:55 Uhr Seite 3
Daimler
an’s head behind the motionless vehicle.
Long, colorful arrows display the jogger’s di-
rection and speed as he runs out into the
street. The experts refer to this as optical
flow, which makes it possible to measure the
relative motions of objects in a video image.
This is necessary because all of the sur-
roundings of a moving car seem to move in a
3D image, causing even motionless objects
such as the waiting vehicle to seem to come
closer. However, if the software also calcu-
lates the optical flow, it immediately be-
comes clear that only the pedestrian is actu-
ally moving from one image to the next in the
animated scene. The software measures the
intrinsic speeds and directions of motion, al-
lowing the system to recognize whether the
vehicle and the pedestrian are on a collision
course. The danger that is lurking in the traf-
fic scene is revealed by means of this three-
dimensionally recorded motion in the 3D im-
age, which is why Franke refers to it as 6D
vision.
Sixth sense However, according to Jürgen
Dickmann, the radar-based sensors provide
us with a sixth sense. One of the major ad-
vantages of these sensors is their ability to
supply information about their surroundings
even under conditions in which the human
eye or video cameras would see very little or
nothing at all. This is illustrated by a false-
color radar image, in which a car located far
in front of the driver is clearly visible as a
radar signal. The corresponding video image,
“The radar is our sixth sense. It sees what
neither our eyes nor the camera can detect”
Jürgen Dickmann, radar expert, Daimler Research
on the other hand, merely shows the car im-
mediately in front, as well as a truck whose
silhouette completely hides the car in front
of it.
Unfortunately, Mr. Radar’s sixth sense is not
perfect either. Its biggest drawback to date is
that objects only appear in the radar image
as a dot of varying size. The shape and size
of the objects is hardly registered, which is
one of the reasons why the teams headed by
Dickmann and Franke are working on merg-
ing the radar and stereo imaging systems.
HTR_0109_E_Radar_24-29.qxd:00_00 Radar.qxd 24.06.2009 9:55 Uhr Seite 4

HTR 01/2009 Assistance Systems 27

FOCUS

Mitigating the Danger at Intersections

Accidents at intersections — caused, for example, by drivers ignoring the right of way when turn-
ing left — are among the most common inner-city accidents. Daimler researchers headed by Uwe
Franke in Ulm are working on an intersection assistant that uses stereo image recording systems.

00:00:00 min : s : s/100 00:01:07 min : s : s/100

Distance measurement All pixels in the video Object detection The orange box shows that
image are measured stereoscopically. The col- the electronic systems have detected the on-
ored areas in green, yellow, and orange show coming vehicle. The green and blue “carpets”
the distance from the other vehicle. depict the routes of the respective cars.

00:03:14 min : s : s/100 00:04:22 min : s : s/100

Escalation The first vehicle does not pose a Interpretation The analysis of the probable
danger, as it has already passed the driver’s routes shows that the cars are on a collision
own route. A threat is now posed by another course. The assistance system warns the driv-
car that is just now coming into view. er by inserting a stop sign into the image.
HTR_0109_E_Radar_24-29.qxd:00_00 Radar.qxd 24.06.2009 9:55 Uhr Seite 5

28 Daimler

1 Danger in 6D In 6D vision, the pixels

are not just measured spatially. Analy-
sis of the optical flow — which is visualized
by means of the arrows on the pedestrian —
also shows the person’s intrinsic speed and
direction of movement.

2 Optical flow This depiction clearly

shows how precisely the pedestrian’s
relative motions are recorded: The moving
leg and the opposite arm are red, while the
supporting leg is green and the slightly
moving torso and head appear orange.
1

3 Laser scanning of traffic Laser scan-

ners could provide radar images with
sharper contours. The picture shows an in-
tersection with an oncoming automobile as
well as a car waiting on a side street.

4 Merging sensors for maximum safe-

ty To address this dangerous situation,
the researchers in Ulm have merged the
x
50
40
30
20

data from radar and stereo cameras. 10

Emergency braking is not initiated until

both types of sensors detect the threat.

5 Visible only to the sixth sense The

front car in the right-hand lane is hid-
den by a truck and is therefore invisible
0

3
both to the human eye and to the camera.
However, the vehicle is clearly recognizable
in the radar image.

6 Long-distance vision on country

roads One advantage of radar sensors
is that they detect objects within a 400-
meter range, which allows them to warn of
oncoming traffic in the passing lane or to
scan the course of winding country roads.

7 Lane recognition system with “extra

intelligence” The first generation of
lane recognition systems only scanned road
markings. However, when such assistance 5
systems are also equipped with algorithms
for object classification, they can also de-
tect construction site signs, which notify
drivers that the lane is closed up ahead.

8 Motion in animated images Intersec-

tions are one of the most complex traf-
fic situations, with oncoming vehicles, cars
crossing the road, and cars in adjacent
lanes of multi-lane roads. There are also
pedestrians, whose movements must be
precisely recorded. The intersection assis-
tant requires the merger of stereo vision
and radar, and is thus the ultimate means
of monitoring traffic situations.
7
HTR_0109_E_Radar_24-29.qxd:00_00 Radar.qxd 24.06.2009 9:55 Uhr Seite 6

HTR 01/2009 Assistance Systems 29

Whereas the radar system provides very pre-

cise information about distance and speed,
video cameras supply information on the ob-
ject’s geometry. This helps to clarify, for ex-
ample, whether or not a driver can still get
past a distant object on the edge of the op-
posite lane of a winding country road.

Sensor dream teams However, radar sys-

tems could be combined with more than just
video cameras in order to form new “dream
teams.” The radar researchers working in
Ulm are also using other systems such as
2 laser scanners in order to add contours and
object geometry to the radar data. Although
this type of sensor technology was previous-
ly too expensive for use in automobiles, var-
ious new developments are now making this
technology attractive with regard to costs.
Laser scanners have a huge advantage over
video sensors. Even though they require a
line of sight in the same way as video sys-
tems do, they can be hidden behind opaque
screens, which is a key concern for a product
that also has to meet very high aesthetic
standards.

Hahn points out that he and his team are not

trying to create their very own “sensor baby”
4 while downplaying the significance of other
types of sensors. On the contrary, his de-
partment is taking a very pragmatic ap-
proach toward its work. “We want to guide
vehicles laterally and longitudinally through
dense traffic in real time, while also ensuring
the highest level of precision possible,” he
says. “But, most importantly, the technology
has to be affordable.”

 WEB TIP

Naturally, this arti-

cle only contains
6 stills of video clips
taken by Daimler re-
searchers. HTR on-
line, on the other hand, offers three
very impressive videos:
6D vision: Spatial vision and
measurement of the optical flow
A laser scanner has its sights on a
junction along a country road
Reducing the amount of data in
stereo vision: a street scene in the
world of stixels

www.daimler.com/innovation

8
HTR_0109_E_Scanner_30-31.qxd:00_00 Scanner.qxd 24.06.2009 10:24 Uhr Seite 1

30

SCANNER

NEW E-CLASS WITH ACTIVE HOOD

50 MILLIMETERS OF ADDITIONAL SAFETY PRE-TENSIONED SPRING ACTUATORS

Pedestrians are the most defenseless road users, and they frequently During a collision, the sensors report
suffer serious injuries when struck by a car or motorcycle. To address the impact to an electronic control unit
this problem, Mercedes-Benz engineers have installed an innovative that immediately activates the two elec-
protective system in the new E-Class: Known as the “active hood,” it tromagnets in the hinge elements. This
can reduce the risk of injury to pedestrians during accidents. releases the locks for the pre-tensioned
steel springs, raising the rear part of the
The hood does this by almost instantaneously rising 50 millimeters hood by five centimeters.
during a collision, thus increasing the deformation space and reducing
the force of the impact. The crash-active system has three collision 1 Upper section of the hood hinge
sensors in the front bumper and cross-member as well as two actua- 2 Hinge link 3 Hood hinge 4 Actu-
tors with strong, pre-tensioned springs for the hood. Another advan- ator lid 5 Actuator interior with pre-
tage of the system is that its activation can be reversed. If the hood is tensioned springs and trigger magnets
unnecessarily raised as a result of a minor impact during a parking ma- 6 Actuator housing 7 Carrier plate
neuver, for instance, the driver can push it back to its original position for actuator unit
and thereby reset it. To satisfy legal requirements, the active hood is
available in the new E-Class in Europe an Japan.
HTR_0109_E_Scanner_30-31.qxd:00_00 Scanner.qxd 24.06.2009 10:25 Uhr Seite 2

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HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:25 Uhr Seite 1

32 Daimler

SAFETY RESEARCH

VIRT DUMMIES

Text Tilman Wörtz Photography Davin Meckel

Simulated crashes. In Bangalore, India, Daimler biomechanics ex-

perts and engineers are conducting research into tomorrow’s acci-
dents. Although the collisions they create take place in the digital
world of computers, the simulations realistically re-create the conse-
quences for the people involved. This is possible thanks to the dedi-
cation of virtual “guinea pigs” known as human body models.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 2

HTR 01/2009 Safety Research 33

UAL
In computer simulations of accidents, human body
models make it possible to realistically assess the
anticipated severity of injuries.

In addition to Daimler, more than three dozen

international companies are represented in the
four-story glass and concrete building.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 3

34 Daimler

W
hen a sedan is hit from the side by a
vehicle moving at 50 kilometers per
hour, the result can be devastating.
The door bulges into the interior; the driver’s
head sinks into the window airbag; his hands
and feet twitch spastically. In a nightmarish
scene, the crash is repeated over and over in
slow motion. No one makes a move to help,
and there are no impact sounds or screams.
The silence is ultimately broken by the busi-
nesslike voice of biomechanics specialist
Girish Sharma, 32. “It took us weeks to pro-
gram the system for these 120 milliseconds,”
he says before freezing the animated scene
on his monitor. Sharma’s chiseled facial fea-
tures express the composure of a person
who comprehends the world by means of
mathematical formulas.

Sharma conducts these simulations to de-

termine what happens in, and to, the bodies
of virtual passengers during traffic accidents.
With a click of his mouse, Sharma opens the
vehicle occupant’s skull. Another click re-
moves the skin and a third unveils the body’s
muscles and tendons. Watching the bones
bend is enough to make most observers
wince. With another click, the body is trans-
formed into a pattern of colored lines. We
zoom deep into the virtual body, making even
the smallest parts visible. The body consists
of 80,000 elements, with numbers, letters,
and equal signs at the nodes. Rows of num-
bers flash by on the screen.

Several clicks later We are now back to

where we started, viewing the overall crash
scenario. Human body modeling is a new re-
search field that promises to yield great ad-
vances in safety technology, especially with
regard to automotive engineering. “We re-
create the entire human body in the com-
“Indians tend to be very tal-
puter,” says Sharma. With this project, Daim-
ler Research is also treading new paths from
ented when it comes to ab-
an organizational standpoint. Specifically,
this is the first time that Mercedes-Benz Re-
stract thinking. After all, we
search and Development India in Bangalore
have created a separate research field.
invented the concept of zero
The concept behind the human body model
and the decimal system”
(HBM) actually sounds very simple. Although
Bharat Balasubramanian, Head of Product Innovations & Process
non-virtual crash dummies have the same Technologies at Corporate Research and Advanced Engineering
shape as a human body, their biomechanical
properties are quite different. After all, the
dummy has a metal frame to give it stability,
rather than a skeleton. What’s more, sensors
take the place of muscles and the brain. “Al-
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr
HTR 01/2009

FOCUS
Germany
3
1 2
Germany
The company’s place of origin in the Stuttgart
region (1) is still the primary location for Daim-
ler’s research and advanced engineering teams
today. Located in close proximity to their col-
leagues from development and production,
most Daimler researchers work on vehicle inno-
vations that are to be used in series-produced
models in the future.
Research activities focusing on the fuel cell, a
pioneering technology, is conducted at the
neighboring location in Nabern (2). In addition
India
The center in Bangalore (4) is Daimler’s largest
research and development location outside of
Germany. In addition to conducting simulations
of mechanical structures, the center develops
software and uses CAE and CAD tools to design
vehicle components. Information technology is
another of the center’s focal points.
Bharat Balasubramanian would like to combine the
strengths of both cultures — German and Indian —
for the benefit of the company. Balasubramanian
was born and raised in India, where he absorbed the
local culture. He came to Germany to complete his
education and begin his professional career.
Seite 4
Safety Research 35
DAIMLER RESEARCH LOCATIONS
India U.S.
5
to boasting outstanding architecture, the cen-
ter in the nearby city of Ulm concentrates on
the fields of virtual reality, safety systems, and
materials research.
In Berlin (3) the Society and Technology re-
search group serves in a sense as Daimler’s
social sciences think tank. The members of
this team are working to specifically address
the challenges and opportunities that are as-
sociated with the future of mobility in all the
world’s important markets.
U.S.
In Palo Alto (5), California, researchers from
Daimler closely monitor developments in
Silicon Valley. Just like their counterparts in
Berlin, the scientists focus on the implementa-
tion of trend research. The U.S. center’s sec-
ond focal point is telematics, which ranges
from entertainment and infotainment to the
development of lifesaving safety features.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009
36

FOCUS
1 2
The whole and the part
Depending on the type of accident to be
re-created, simulations require data sets
either for the entire human body (1) or for
specific body parts or areas (2). One of the
crucial factors determining the quality of
the HBM, and ultimately also the level of
realism with which the simulation depicts
the possible severity of accidents, is the
10:26 Uhr Seite 5
Daimler
THE ELEMENTS OF THE HBM
1 Entire body
2 Body parts
3 Geometry
4 Biomechanics
accuracy of the average values used for
the geometry of the body parts (3). How-
ever, the key issue is how realistically the
algorithms developed for the simulation
reflect the biomechanics (4) of individual
body areas and types of tissue, with regard
to tensile strength, compressive strength,
elasticity, and resistance to fracture.
The engineers at the Daimler research center in
Bangalore work in accordance with one of the
industry’s highest quality standards worldwide.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 6

HTR 01/2009 Safety Research 37

though we can use dummies to measure the

forces that act on the body, we can’t find out
how these forces affect real body parts in de-
tail,” says Sharma, describing the differences
between the two approaches. This is where
the HBM project comes in. Thanks to the vir-
tual human beings, researchers can now sim-
ulate the effects of a crash on the human
body. A major success has already been
achieved with the first use of this approach in
vehicle development, which led to the cre-
ation of an innovative seat belt system. HBM
simulations have helped developers at Mer-
cedes-Benz to further improve the protective
effect of the new seat belt system.

To the limit To show us on the monitor what

he means, Sharma calls up a simulation of a
blue-colored ribcage, with the individual ribs
divided into many small fields. A safety belt
crosses the thorax diagonally. Sharma clicks
the mouse, launching a simulation of a side
impact at 50 kilometers per hour. The size
and stability of the virtual ribcage correspond
to those of a middle-aged man of average
height. The impact causes the upper body to
move to the side; the belt tightens; and the
ribs are compressed. This is depicted on-
screen by the changing colors of the individ-
ual ribs, which progress from green to yellow
and all the way to red in the areas covered
by the belt. The colors represent the intensi-
ty of the forces acting on the ribcage.

“Ultimately we are
re-creating the entire
human body
in the computer”
Girish Sharma, HBM project, Bangalore

“The simulation showed the developers in

Sindelfingen, Germany, the points where
conventional belts could be made even bet-
ter,” explains Sharma, while pointing with a
pen to a critical area of the ribcage. Dummies
alone cannot provide such information, and
besides they don’t have sensors at all the
points where they might actually be needed.
“If you put too many sensors into the dum-
mies, they would behave even less like a hu-
man body,” says Sharma. The human body
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd
38
model, on the other hand, reflects our med-
ical knowledge of the resilience of the
ribcage. Sharma is familiar with the relevant
literature concerning the elasticity and
breaking resistance of human bones and can
use the published values in his simulations.
Click. A similar simulation now appears on
Christian Mayer’s monitor in Sindelfingen.
Mayer is the man behind the HBM project,
and his work at Daimler Research and Ad-
vanced Engineering is currently focused on
occupant protection. He describes how the
HBM project has contributed to the develop-
ment of the innovative seat belt system. The
screen depicts the ribcage during a simula-
tion of the same collision that Sharma
showed, but this time the innovative seat belt
system is being used. The results show that
“The human body
model is suitable for
many applications
in crash simulations”
Christian Mayer, Occupant Protection, Group
Research and Advanced Engineering
none of the ribs turn even slightly red, mean-
ing the bones are subject to far less strain.
Injury scenarios “There are many possible
applications for the human body model,”
says Mayer, who becomes enthusiastic when
discussing this topic. “The simulations have
provided us with more precise information
regarding how far the car body’s central pil-
lar has to be from the seat in order for it not
to endanger the driver and the front passen-
ger during a side collision. They also tell us
what materials should be used to cushion the
interior.” The center in Bangalore has already
supplied Mayer’s team with simulations for
several of these scenarios.
As an example, Mayer depicts a frontal colli-
sion involving a pedestrian. To do this, he lets
a virtual car moving at 30 kilometers per
hour collide with a pedestrian. Upon impact,
the upper part of the pedestrian’s body
bends in the direction of the hood. His head
strikes the hood, and his legs are rammed by
24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 7
Daimler
the bumper. As a result, the pedestrian is
hurled over the hood and thrown against the
windshield, where the force of the impact
flings him back onto the road.
“The question is: How much and how fast
must the hood rise to ensure that the pedes-
trian’s head collides less forcefully with the
car?” Mayer phrases the question as clearly
as a math teacher would during a quiz. The
question is more than just an abstract math
problem, however, because the correct solu-
tion could help mitigate the consequences of
an accident in real life. In addition to the
highly effective BAS emergency braking sys-
tem, pop-up hoods provide another means of
possibly lessening the severity of injuries for
cyclists and pedestrians. “We consider this
our contribution to improving safety in real-
life traffic situations,” explains Mayer.
Driving brand-new vehicles into a wall De-
termining exactly which types of crashes
need to be simulated largely depends on reg-
ulations for approval of a new model series.
In addition to frontal and side impacts at var-
ious speeds, the researchers have to test
frontal collisions with a device that simulates
accidents involving pedestrians. In the U.S.,
offset crash tests are required as well. Be-
fore it can bear the Mercedes star, an E-Class
model must successfully pass a total of 39
tests, including several very challenging in-
house scenarios. For example, a number of
brand-new sedans must be driven into a wall
under the watchful gaze of government test-
ing professionals. And because the develop-
ment engineers at Mercedes-Benz want to
prevent nasty surprises during the official
crash tests, they test all their new models in
advance, which means smashing even more
vehicles into a wall. “The crash simulations
with the human body model will help us to
dispense with some of these development
tests in the future,” says Naveen Kumar, 27,
who is Sharma’s right-hand man on the HBM
team in Bangalore. Besides helping to save
costs, these simulations could accelerate a
vehicle’s development and further improve
occupant protection.
Virtual crash tests have been around for
many years now, as has the understanding
of how a passenger compartment becomes
deformed during an accident. Such simula-
tions are also conducted by a team at Mer-
cedes-Benz Research and Development In-
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 8

HTR 01/2009 Safety Research 39

Bollywood is more visible in Bangalore than are high-tech companies like Dell
and IBM. In this typical Indian city, vision and tradition co-exist side by side.

Girish Sharma When it comes to the HBM project, the cuckoo clock on the wall
isn’t the only link between the Indian biomechanics expert and his development
colleagues in Sindelfingen. Despite the great distances between the various
members of the project team, the researchers feel quite close, thanks to regular
video conferences and visits.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd
40

FOCUS
1 Enhanced
model
2 Original
data set
120
milliseconds of a traffic accident have to
be simulated in the computer as realisti-
cally as possible. Even very powerful
computers equipped with 64 processors
require an entire day to recreate such an
“instant.”
That’s because the digital models for
the vehicle and the virtual road user are
exceedingly complex. A finite element
model of the human body provides the
mathematical basis for the calculations.
Instead of cells, however, it consists of
many small elements.
24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 9
Daimler
FINE-TUNING
2
80,000
of these elements define a car occupant
or a pedestrian. The first task was to
substantially enhance the original mod-
el. Each element is linked to its neigh-
bors via nodes, through which each
force is transmitted mathematically in
the computer simulation.
This adds up to about 400,000 calcula-
tion processes per unit of time. The
nodes can rotate and/or shift their loca-
tion, so the algorithm has to solve a
lengthy system of equations that de-
scribes six degrees of freedom for each
unit of time.
Indians have always been adept at using their heads,
in both a literal and a figurative sense. As one of the
subcontinent’s outstanding IT locations, Bangalore
has demonstrated its ability to attract companies
from all over the world.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 10

HTR 01/2009 Safety Research 41

HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd 24.06.2009 10:26 Uhr Seite 11

42 Daimler

Thomas Pantleon heads the Daimler research center in Banga-

lore, which currently employs 210 men and women, most of
whom are motor vehicle and IT engineers. Daimler plans to grad-
ually expand the center over the coming years.

In view of the swaths of green between the state-of-the-art office

buildings, the term “industrial park” is very appropriate here. The
center is a calm oasis amid the noise of the metropolis.
HTR_0109_E_Indien_32-43.qxd:00_00 Indien.qxd
HTR 01/2009
dia. The human body model is now expanding
this knowledge by using biomechanical data.
How much force does it take to break a
bone? And how resistant to tearing are knee-
joint ligaments? Sharma and Kumar obtain
the data that can help answer these and oth-
er questions from accident statistics and
publications of university institutes. However,
there are gaps in the knowledge. “The accu-
racy of a simulation of real-life occupant
strain is very dependent on the quality of the
biomechanical data,” explains Sharma.
“The main require-
ments are conscien-
tiousness and mathe-
matical expertise”
Thomas Pantleon, Head of the Daimler research
center in Bangalore, India
Algorithms for preventing computer
crashes The task facing Sharma and Kumar
is to come up with and optimize algorithms
that allow crash simulations to recreate real-
life processes as accurately as possible. The
simulations require a great deal of computing
power (see box on page 40: “Fine-tuning”)
and time, despite the sophisticated hardware
that is available. As a result, the researchers
don’t always manage to view a successful an-
imation process by the end of a long day of
computing. “If a mistake finds its way into
our model somewhere, it might cause the
computer to freeze,” says Sharma. “It’s a big
challenge to run a simulation without crash-
ing the system.” Faulty values in just one pa-
rameter can quickly lead to abstruse
processes that are obviously unrealistic.
Click. Kumar demonstrates this problem us-
ing a simulation of a car-pedestrian impact.
He enters 35 kilometers per hour, which is
five kilometers per hour faster than the value
his colleague Christian Mayer typed in. The
result is bizarre: The virtual dummy “melts”
into the radiator grille. Individual lines spread
out from the dummy across the entire
screen, distorting the image until it becomes
unrecognizable. “We still have to optimize the
model so that it can handle this impact ve-
locity,” explains Kumar.
24.06.2009 10:27 Uhr Seite 12
Safety Research
IT hotspot Bangalore It’s no coincidence
that the HBM project is being run by an Indi-
an team. With its 210 employees, Bangalore
is not only Daimler’s largest development
and research location outside Germany; it’s
also a globally renowned IT hotspot, thanks
to its many outstanding specialists in all
areas of computer science. Colleagues in
Sharma’s and Kumar’s departments draw up
design plans for transmissions and suspen-
sions, develop software for vehicle electron-
ics, and create computer programs for their
colleagues.
The employees work at the second-highest
of the five levels of the international Capa-
bility Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
standard, which measures the quality of soft-
ware processes. Very few institutions in the
world attain this high level. “This very strong
rating requires all processes to be docu-
mented with great accuracy,” explains
Thomas Pantleon, Head of Mercedes-Benz
Research and Development India. “We have
found employees with the required consci-
entiousness and mathematical expertise
here in Bangalore.”
Tough selection process Candidates who
would like to be hired by the center need to
have many years of professional experience
and a degree from a first-rate university. Ban-
galore boasts India’s leading educational and
research institutions, including the College
of Engineering, where Naveen Kumar earned
his degree, and the Indian Institute of
Science, which each year organizes a
nationwide selection of graduate and post-
graduate students. Only two percent of the
candidates pass the admission test and the
subsequent interview that lead to one of the
coveted positions — and the opportunity to
focus exclusively on research. The institute
has an outstanding teacher-student ratio of
five postgraduates per professor. These are
excellent conditions for a country that wants
to become a world leader in research as
well.
Bharat Balasubramanian, Head of Product In-
novations & Process Technologies at Daim-
ler Corporate Research and Advanced Engi-
neering, has promised to stop by this
afternoon. A native of India, Balasubraman-
ian went to Germany to earn a doctorate in
engineering and subsequently embark on a
career at Daimler. His biography shows how
43
people can combine the advantages of dif-
ferent cultures: “Indians are very talented
when it comes to abstract thinking. After all,
we created the concept of zero and the dec-
imal system,” he says with pride. What fasci-
nates him about Germany, on the other hand,
is how skillfully the country’s engineers are
able to turn theoretical knowledge into actu-
al products. “A company like Daimler has to
bring together the various strengths of its
employees,” he says. “This will allow us to re-
main competitive worldwide.”
Balasubramanian wants to discuss the future
of the Bangalore center with local manage-
ment. In the afternoon, he explains the situ-
ation to the center’s employees, discussing
the drop in demand worldwide and Daimler’s
plans to expand its operations in Bangalore.
“We will gradually expand capacities in In-
dia,” he says in his calm manner. Balasubra-
manian also vigorously speaks out against
the idea that costs are the only issue. “The
main thing is your expertise!” he says. As was
the case when demonstrating the virtual ac-
cidents, Sharma’s face expresses no emotion
as he listens to this praise. After the meet-
ing, he returns to his work station behind the
sound-absorbing partitions.
Click. Enter. Two seconds later, a new E-Class
sedan from Mercedes-Benz slams into a
virtual pole.
 WEB TIP
As part of his job at
Corporate Research
and Advanced Engi-
neering, Bharat Bal-
asubramanian is also responsible for
the research and development center
in Bangalore, India. In a discussion
with the author of the report, Tilman
Wörtz, Balasubramanian not only ex-
plains the benefits of globally net-
worked development, but also talks
about the company’s strategy for its
research location in India.
An in-depth interview with
Bharat Balasubramanian
Crash simulation using the human
body model
www.daimler.com/innovation
HTR_0109_E_Laufkultur_44-45.qxd:44_45 Laufkultur.qxd 24.06.2009 10:28 Uhr Seite 1

44 Daimler

SMOOTH RUNNING

Our story begins with the Christmas shuttle. It’s December 1999 and the shuttle bus
is providing visitors with quiet, zero-emission transportation between Hamburg’s Christmas
markets. The vehicle, which is operated by the Hamburger Hochbahn public transport company,
is a “Nebus,” the first fuel cell bus produced by Daimler.

Four years later, a worldwide major project is initiated in Hamburg and eleven fur-

Going Places
ther cities, in which a total of 36 Citaro fuel cell buses are on the roads.
Today, Hamburger Hochbahn operates six Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel cell
buses, each with more than 5,000 hours of operation. At the beginning of the
year Mayor Ole von Beust announces: “We plan to further increase the num-
ber of hydrogen-powered vehicles in our fleet.” In other words, the city is now
really going places as far as alternative transportation is concerned. In fact, ten of the
latest-generation Citaro fuel cell buses will begin operation in Hamburg in late 2010. They will be
joined by 20 B-Class F-CELL cars, which can be easily refueled within minutes and are ca-
pable of everyday operation. Hamburg will also receive four new hydrogen filling stations
to complement the two it already has.

Hamburg’s commitment to zero-emission H2 drives is also on display in the Speicherstadt district,

where a 1:87 scale fuel cell bus makes its rounds amid model railroads at the “Miniature Wonder-
land.” The bus, which is 14 centimeters long, is equipped with an actual miniature fuel cell that
powers an electric motor. Although the lilliputian high-tech vehicle has to refuel every five min-
utes, the hydrogen is — naturally — generated renewably with solar energy.

SERIAL NUMBER

MASTHEAD CONTACT
Publisher Design Editorial Office HTR online
Daimler AG Horst Schüler, teamkom, Fax: +49 (0) 711 17-790-95251 www.daimler.com/innovation
Communications Stuttgart e-mail: hightechreport@daimler.com www.media.daimler.com
Corporate Media & Marketing
Photography and illustrations Reader service Editorial deadline for this issue:
External Publications
Daimler AG, Stuttgart Zenit Pressevertrieb GmbH June 2, 2009
70546 Stuttgart
Kurt Henseler, Tübingen Postfach 810580
Germany HTR HighTech Report is published twice
Dawin Meckel, Ostkreuz, Berlin 70522 Stuttgart,
a year in a run of 185,000 copies, with
For the publisher Bernd Schifferdecker, Stuttgart Germany
German and English editions.
Mirjam Bendak Gernot Walter, Aichwald Fax: +49 (0) 711 7252-399
e-mail: leserservice@zenit-presse.de Printed on Galerie Silk paper, which is
Business Manager Translation
certified in accordance with ISO 14001
Matthias Steybe Transform GmbH, Cologne Advertisements
and with EMAS and bears the PEFC
Maja Brechlin
Concept Reprography sustainability seal (www.pefc.de).
Tel: +49 (0) 711 17–59298
design hoch drei, Stuttgart Dr. Cantz’sche Druckerei, Ostfildern
Fax: +49 (0) 711 17–59049 Reprinting, including excerpts, only
Editing and authors Printing e-mail: maja.brechlin@daimler.com with written authorization of the pub-
Roland Bischoff, Klartext, Stuttgart J. Fink Druckerei, Ostfildern lisher and the picture and text credit
Press
Eberhard Buhl, Stuttgart “Daimler AG.”
Sales Patricia Piekenbrock
Tilman Wörtz, Zeitenspiegel, Weinstadt
Uwe Haspel Tel: +49 (0) 160 8687561 ISSN 1865-6080
Rolf Andreas Zell, Klartext, Stuttgart
Fax: +49 (0) 711 17-94365
e-mail: patricia.piekenbrock@daimler.com
HTR_0109_E_Laufkultur_44-45.qxd:44_45 Laufkultur.qxd 24.06.2009 10:29 Uhr Seite 2

“I RELY ON SHELL RIMULA. BECAUSE

IF MY FLEET WORKS RELIABLY,
MY BUSINESS DOES TOO.“
MICHAEL DIEBEL, CEO OF DIEBEL SPEDITIONS GMBH, KASSEL
Maximum efficiency with lower costs per kilometre and minimal down-time for your fleet – just a
few issues that alongside protecting the engine are as important to us as to you. So we developed
Shell Rimula Energised Protection. The chemical and physical features of our high-performance oil
provide maximum performance and greater efficiency.
For more information see: www.shell.com
DESIGNED TO MEET CHALLENGES
HTR_0109_E_OM651_46-51.qxd:46_51 OM651.qxd 24.06.2009 10:30 Uhr Seite 1

46 Daimler

ENGINE RESEARCH

OM651Text Eberhard Buhl Photos Kurt Henseler

The project originated with the idea of creating a diesel drive system suitable for a universal
range of applications: the OM651 world engine. After approximately 100,000 hours on the test
rig, the new four-cylinder diesel engine is now in series production.
HTR_0109_E_OM651_46-51.qxd:46_51 OM651.qxd 24.06.2009 10:30 Uhr Seite 2

HTR 01/2009 Engine Research 47

Two-stage supercharger
High-pressure turbocharger 2,000 bar, high-pressure injection system
(low to medium engine speeds) Directly controlled piezo injectors
Low-pressure turbocharger
(medium to high engine speeds)

Camshaft drive at the rear

of the engine
Cylinders: 4
Displacement: 2,143 cm2
Compression ratio: 16.2 : 1

Output: 150 kW / 204 hp

at 4,200 rpm
Torque: 500 Nm
at 1,600 – 1,800 rpm

Certified fuel consumption:

5.1 l/100 km
Emissions: 134 g CO2/km

Suitable for longitudinal and

transverse installation
HTR_0109_E_OM651_46-51.qxd:46_51 OM651.qxd
48
T
he new generation of engines didn’t ap-
pear overnight. The Daimler engineers
spent many years conceiving and de-
signing the new series of advanced diesel en-
gines and preparing it for series production.
And, as always, the specialists from Ad-
vanced Engineering and Series Development
worked hand in hand. The concept phase for
the OM651 began at Advanced Engineering
back in 2003. According to Franz-Paul Gulde
and Johannes Leweux, the initial goal was
solely to develop the technology for the
planned engine’s components or to modify
tried and tested systems. Gulde is Head of
the Car Diesel Engine department at Ad-
vanced Engineering; his colleague Leweux is
responsible for OM651 Product Develop-
ment. The team of engineers didn’t have to
start from scratch for all the components; in
some cases they were able to use technolo-
gies that had proven their worth in other proj-
ects. After all, Daimler currently makes a
very broad range of diesel engines, from the
world’s smallest diesel — the three-cylinder
engine of the smart — to the Actros truck’s
V8 engine, with its 16 liters of displacement
and 2,800 newton-meters of torque.
Some of the issues that had to be resolved
were whether the engine concept could re-
main unchanged for the specified goal;
whether the pistons, injection system, and
exhaust gas recirculation could remain un-
modified; and where completely new solu-
tions would be required. The advanced engi-
neering specialists headed by Gulde analyze,
test, and develop components to a point
where they are technologically advanced
enough to represent a “set of practicable
technological solutions” that can be handed
over to the colleagues at Series Develop-
ment. In the case of the OM651, however, lit-
tle could remain the same as it originally was,
says Leweux: “We planned to conduct an es-
pecially intense concept phase for this new
engine generation — one that would require
far more work than usual. In the second de-
velopment phase that followed we spent an-
other three years making the engine as a
whole ready for series production in time for
its market launch in 2008.”
Ambitious project The requirements were
tough, and the goals were very ambitious.
According to Leweux, “our key requirements
included reducing our previous diversity of
engines and creating a single base engine for
as many passenger and commercial vehicle
applications as possible, from the C-Class to
the Sprinter.” Another goal was to ensure
24.06.2009 10:30 Uhr Seite 3
Daimler


that the various types of mounting would re- FOCUS
quire as few specific changes to the connec-
tions and drives as possible — requirements
that also applied to components such as the BASE ENGINE
supercharger unit and exhaust gas recircula-
tion system. During one of the early devel-
opment phases it became clear that emis-
sions regulations would be made much more
stringent not only in Europe, but to an even
greater degree in the U.S. Fuel consumption
would also have to be greatly reduced, of
1 compact engine for many different ap-
plications. The OM651 replaces several previ-
ous engines and is installed in a variety of ve-
hicle models, ranging from the C-Class to the
course, even though the current trend is to-
Sprinter. The base engine is thus designed to
ward much higher outputs per liter of dis-
keep the number of specific components re-
placement. “It was clear to all of us that a
quired for the different variants to a minimum.
competitive four-cylinder diesel engine in
2008 would have to generate around 150
kilowatts,” adds Gulde. But how could all
these different needs be reconciled, and
where would it be best to start?
One for all “At the beginning of the process
you always have to determine which basic at-
tributes the new engine should have,” says
Leweux. “A very compact base engine with
only four cylinders should be suitable for all
key types of vans and passenger vehicles, in
both longitudinal and transverse mounting.
And its installation should require only a sim-
ple rearrangement of the drive components.”
“Our goal was to create
To make this possible, new and rather un-
usual ideas had to be developed — for ex- a compact base engine
ample, when it came to positioning the
camshaft drive. Because the hoods of today’s with a very high level of
vehicles are generally low in front, the engi-
neers decided in favor of a shortened chain commonization”
drive, which they simply moved to the rear of
the engine block. Another change involved Johannes Leweux,
the high-pressure injection pump, which is OM651 Product Development
normally adjacent to the camshaft. “But we
were unable to come up with a design that
would have worked with both longitudinal
and transverse mounting, so we placed the
pump on the side of the crankcase,” says
Leweux. “We use a space-saving gear system
to drive the injection pump, the oil pump, and
the balance shaft.”
Unlike the trend toward more compact di-
mensions, the need to reduce emissions left
almost no leeway, because regulations in Eu-
rope and in the U.S. are becoming more and
more demanding. “This is why emissions
characteristics are really the key issue for
every diesel developer,” explains Gulde. “And
even though downstream technology such as
SCR can subsequently improve emissions
considerably, our objective with the OM651
was to achieve our target purely by means of
in-engine measures.”
HTR_0109_E_OM651_46-51.qxd:46_51 OM651.qxd 24.06.2009 10:30 Uhr Seite 4

HTR 01/2009 Engine Research 49

JOHANNES LEWEUX
OM651 PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
HTR_0109_E_OM651_46-51.qxd:46_51 OM651.qxd 24.06.2009 10:30 Uhr Seite 5

50 Daimler

FRANZ-PAUL GULDE
ADVANCED ENGINEERING
CAR DIESEL ENGINE
HTR_0109_E_OM651_46-51.qxd:46_51 OM651.qxd 24.06.2009 10:30 Uhr Seite 6

HTR 01/2009 Engine Research 51

FOCUS “The lower the mass concentration of oxygen
in the combustion chamber, the less NOx is
generated,” explains Gulde. “We rely on this
FUEL INJECTION principle in our solution, which combines ex-
haust gas recirculation with supercharging.”
The recirculated exhaust gases decrease the
ing solutions, such as the volume-regulated
oil pump and the vacuum-switchable water
pump. The new engine now powers the
Mercedes-Benz C250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY,
which consumes only 5.1 liters/100 kilome-
ters and emits 134 grams of CO2/kilometer.

2,000 bar
injection pressure and the first directly con-
trolled piezo injectors in a series-produced
oxygen in the combustion chamber, thereby
reducing the NOx generated during com-
bustion.

At the same time, the exhaust turbochargers

boost the proportion of air in the chamber,
The engine will also soon be used in the
Mercedes-Benz E-Class, S-Class, GLK and
Sprinter.

Ideas for the future Despite this achieve-

engine demonstrate that the level of innova-
tion in the OM651 is far above average. As a
result, the injection system now reacts much
faster than was previously the case.
“We already have
lots of new ideas
for further improving
efficiency”
Franz-Paul Gulde,
Advanced Engineering Car Diesel Engine
while improving thermodynamic efficiency
and fuel economy. This enables the new four-
cylinder diesel to meet the EU5 emissions
standard without a need for additional meas-
ures, such as selective catalytic reduction
(SCR). “We achieved a lot in the OM651 by
cleverly coordinating the various systems,”
says Gulde.
Twin supercharger In another new ap-
proach, the engineers used two-stage tur-
bocharging. “Previously we used this process
only in commercial vehicle engines,” says
Leweux. “This is the first time it has been
transferred to a compact car engine.” The
new approach was used because conven-
tional supercharging concepts quickly reach
their limits in downsized diesel engines with
high specific outputs. They cannot provide
sufficient pressure when the vehicle begins
to move or is running at high engine speeds.
“The two-stage concept, however, has a
small, quick-starting high-pressure tur-
bocharger that works in conjunction with a
larger low-pressure turbocharger to provide a
substantial torque of 500 newton-meters at
engine speeds as low as 1,600 rpm,” says
Leweux. “The low-pressure turbocharger
works on its own once the engine reaches
medium speeds. All in all, this greatly im-
proves handling and fuel consumption across
the entire range of engine speeds, while also
reducing emissions.”
There are also innovations in the injection
system. The engine developers initially con-
sidered several different technologies. After
extensively studying, comparing, and evalu-
ating their functionality, the developers
“ultimately chose directly controlled piezo in-
jectors,” says Leweux. “We were especially
impressed by the steeper injection rate this
system attains, and by the so-called profile.”
The response times are much slower in con-
ventional systems using magnetic coils.
ment, Gulde’s team is working closely with
the series developers to come up with con-
cepts for diesel engines that “might be
launched on the market in five or six years.”
It’s possible that this will lead to sweeping
changes as well. “Among the issues being
discussed is how far engines can still be sen-
sibly downsized,” says Gulde. “It would be
conceivable, for example, to regard the
OM651 as a basis for compact diesel engines
for use in hybrids.”
The focus, however, is on achieving more
advances in terms of emissions and fuel ef-
ficiency. To this end, the engineers are work-
ing on new technologies such as electroni-
cally controlled multi-path exhaust gas
recirculation systems, and further exploiting
the potential of piezo injection systems.
“Piezo injectors can do more than just open
and close nozzles,” says Gulde. “By moving
the jet needle to precisely defined positions,
they can bring further benefits.”
And although the engine designers have ac-
complished so much to date with the OM651,
more advances will have to be made quickly
in order to meet increasing demands.
 WEB TIP
In addition to this
article, HTR online
offers more OM651
technical details
and an interview
focusing on the development poten-
tial of the gasoline engine.
Data sheet: Special technical
features of the OM651
Workshop talk from HTR 01/08:
“Engine Research and Develop-
ment” with Erhard Rau and Peter
Lückert

www.daimler.com/innovation
Fuel consumption has also improved, as the
system is used with impressive energy-sav-
 52 Daimler

MOBILITY CONCEPTS

Daimler is presenting a new mobility concept. Here’s how it works:

HTR_0109_E_Car2Go_52-57.indd 2 24.06.2009 9:13:30 Uhr

 1. Book 2. Get in 3. Drive 4. Make stops 5. Park 6. Pay
HTR 01/2009

HTR_0109_E_Car2Go_52-57.indd 3
>> >> >> >> >>

As a registered cus-
tomer, you can pick up
a car2go smart on the
spur of the moment —
or reserve one in
advance by phone or
on the Internet.
Just place the electronic
car2go seal, which is on
your driver’s license, on
the scanner on the wind-
shield — and the car
doors will open.
Enter your PIN using the You can make stops for When you’re done using Your bill for the number
touchscreen and evalu- shopping etc., and the the car, return the key to of minutes usage is paid
ate the vehicle’s condi- vehicle will remain re- the glove compartment. by direct debit. All your
tion. You will find the served for you. In other Use your car2go seal to trips from the last 90
car’s ignition key in a words, no one will be lock the vehicle — and days can be viewed at
special holder in the able to drive away with then simply walk away. the car2go website’s
glove compartment. “your” smart. Customers section.

Text Roland Bischoff Illustrations Gernot Walter

Mobility Concepts

uruma Banare,” says Thomas Weber, the Daimler Board
of Management member responsible for Research and
Development, “is the Japanese term for a trend in ma-
jor Japanese cities, which can more or less be trans-
lated as ‘de-motorization.’ Many people in such areas
are opting not to buy their own vehicle and turning to
car-sharing solutions.” And Japan isn’t the only place where more and
more people are driving; the trend is evident in all the world’s large met-
ropolitan areas, whose populations continue to grow. There are 450 cities
in the world today with populations of more than one million.
Intelligent mobility concepts will soon be required if we intend to cope
responsibly with the growing volume of traffic. Daimler has presented a
completely new solution in this field: the “car2go” program. Unlike con-
ventional rental or sharing concepts, car2go vehicles are available to cus-
tomers anywhere and at any time. Cars can even be picked up and driv-
en off on the spur of the moment.
The system works well: Since March of this year, 200 smart fortwo cdi
vehicles have been available in the city of Ulm, Germany, for use as spe-
cial rental cars. The program launch in Ulm was preceded by a six-month
pilot phase. In the fall of 2009, another 200 smarts will be made available
as car2go vehicles that can be picked up and driven in Austin, Texas,
making it possible to test new forms of urban mobility in the U.S. as well.
“Our mobility concept allows individuals to drive an environmentally
sound vehicle at a reasonable price, around the clock,” says car2go Proj-
53

24.06.2009 9:13:33 Uhr



FOCUS
HTR_0109_E_Car2Go_52-57.indd 4
Possible assignment
Preliminary assignment
with algorithm
Canceled assignment
Expansion path generates
new assignments
Smart Dispatching
Simply grab a car2go. Drive around for a while in and/or around Ulm.
Then park the car in the city — and there’s nothing left for you to do.
This simple process for customers actually posed a great challenge for
the engineers at Daimler Research who developed the algorithms for
managing the car2go system.
“On the one hand, we had to ensure that the smarts could be parked
almost anywhere in the city after use, while on the other, we had to
take into account the fact that the number of available vehicles would
repeatedly fluctuate because customers would be picking up vehicles
on the spur of the moment,” explains Johann-Friedrich Luy from the
Quality Analysis unit at Group Research. “We also needed to guaran-
tee that confirmed vehicle reservations would always be honored. Fi-
nally, the service had to be organized in a way that would ensure the
cars are always clean and sufficiently fueled.”
To meet the demands related to automated allocation of the car2go
fleet, Luy and his team made use of graph theory, a branch of math-
ematics that is used, among other things, to optimize routes taken by
traveling sales representatives. A graph consists of a collection of ver-
tices (nodes) linked together by lines (edges). The nodes in the graphs
24.06.2009 9:13:34 Uhr
54
developed by the Ulm researchers represent the vehicles and cus-
tomers, while the edges are the reservations and spur-of-the-
moment bookings, whereby these can also be depicted as lists. “Math-
ematically speaking, we use the graphs to search for the maximum
bipartite matching of vehicles and bookings,” says Luy’s colleague
Axel Blumenstock. “We also determine the minimum number of ‘crit-
ical’ vehicles — the only ones that may not be used on the spur of the
moment, to make sure we can meet our reservation obligations.
There’s also a routing server, of course. Much like a navigation system,
it ensures that customers are issued the closest available smart.”
Until now the researchers have been focusing on development and
optimization of the booking engine in order to achieve vehicle distri-
bution in line with actual demand. Another key issue involves the ful-
ly automated dispatching of the service teams. The researchers are al-
so working on forecasting technology that will allow the greatest
possible amount of spur-of-the-moment use of already reserved ve-
hicles. “The next step,” says Luy, “will be to transfer the knowledge
and experience gained in Ulm and Austin to big cities with several mil-
lion inhabitants, where thousands of car2go vehicles will then be put
into operation.”
Daimler

HTR_0109_E_Car2Go_52-57.indd 5
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
“Using car2go is as easy as making
calls with your cell phone”
Robert Henrich, Project Manager
ect Manager Robert Henrich. “Using car2go is as easy as making calls
with your cell phone.” The principle is in fact extremely simple: Daimler
is providing 200 smarts in Ulm and 200 in Austin. Registered customers
can use the speedy little cars as they wish, and then simply park them
anywhere within the city limits when they’re done. Billing is based on to-
tal time of use, whereby the 19 euro cents charged per minute in Ulm in-
clude tax, insurance, unlimited kilometers, and even fuel. There are also
flat rates of ¤9.90 and ¤49 for hourly or daily use, respectively.
Fully booked during peak hours The pilot phase for the Ulm program
was launched in October 2008, when 50 vehicles were made available to
500 employees at Daimler’s Ulm Research Center and 200 of their fam-
ily members. The goal here was to test the concept’s hardware and soft-
ware. In addition, the project team wanted to see how customers would
use car2go, and determine how much it would cost to provide the serv-
ice. “The success of the pilot phase was surprising even to us, and it
showed just how important forward-looking mobility concepts already
are,” says Henrich, whose team is part of the Business Innovation de-
24.06.2009 9:13:38 Uhr
HTR 01/2009
partment. “The vehicle fleet was fully booked during peak times, and we
could easily have significantly expanded it in view of the great demand.
During the six-month pilot phase, we recorded more than 8,000 rental
transactions, and every day as many as eight people used the same car.”
Customer feedback was uniformly positive, and many were surprised by
how smoothly car2go functioned in practice. In addition, users found the
minute-based billing system to be very customer-friendly. The project al-
so attracted a great deal of national and international interest from the
beginning. “We’ve received numerous queries from cities around the
world that would also like to offer a car2go system,” says Henrich. That’s
not surprising, given that a survey conducted before the project was even
launched showed that such a mobility concept would be received posi-
Mobility Concepts
tively by a broad segment of the population.
The car2go team made service a top priority right from the beginning,
whereby the associated concept relied heavily on the cooperation of cus-
tomers, who need to not only enter a PIN on a touchscreen before they
can drive off, but also complete a checklist on the condition of the smart
vehicle they are about to rent. If, for example, customers report finding
dirt inside or outside, the vehicle will be blocked for subsequent use un-
til a service team can clean it. Such unscheduled cleanings haven’t been
an issue to date: “There’s been very little dirt or damage — our experience
here has been extremely positive,” Henrich reports.
Easy to find in the vicinity Service personnel also go into action when
a vehicle is about to run out of fuel. To ensure that this rarely happens,
a prepaid fuel card is kept in the glove compartment, enabling customers
55


FOCUS
HTR_0109_E_Car2Go_52-57.indd 6
Ulm, Baden-Württemberg,
Germany
120,000 people live in Ulm. The city’s trademark
is the Ulm Cathedral, which boasts the world’s highest steeple.
Two autobahns, five national highways, and seven rail lines make
Ulm a major German transport hub.
119 square kilometers is the total area of Albert Einstein’s
home town. The surrounding countryside on both sides of the
Danube is very geographically segmented and lies between 459
and 646 meters above sea level.
1,023 people occupy one square kilometer in Ulm on
average. Research is a key industry in the city. The Eselsberg
science hub in Ulm is home to several public colleges and many
research institutes operated by companies from the automotive
and IT sectors. Among the more well-known institutions are Ulm
University Hospital and the German Armed Forces Hospital.
24.06.2009 9:13:39 Uhr
56
Austin, Texas, USA
750,000 people live in the Texas capital, whose
trademark is the State Capitol building. The major transport arteries
are Interstate 35, seven highways, and the Chicago–San Antonio rail
line. Austin is also served by an international airport.
767 square kilometers is the total area of the city on the
Colorado River, whose surrounding pleasant hillsides lie between
150 and 238 meters above sea level. Austin is also surrounded by
several lakes that are used for swimming and water sports.
1,152 people occupy one square kilometer on average
in Austin, thus making this city densely populated as well. With
50,000 students, the University of Texas, which is located in Austin,
is one of the largest universities in the U.S. The capital’s many well-
known computer and electronics companies have led to it being
called “Silicon Hills.”
Daimler

HTR_0109_E_Car2Go_52-57.indd 7
to fill up themselves. Those who carry out this minor task are rewarded
with a discount on the rental fee, provided the tank was less than 25 per-
cent full when they did so. Moving the blue and white smarts around town
hasn’t been as big an issue as was originally expected, since the high de-
mand for the 200 smarts in Ulm means the cars are used often, and thus
continually “redistributed” around the city. As a result, customers can
generally find a car2go within a radius of a few hundred meters.
A growing number of users Following the program’s successful start,
the car2go team picked up speed in February 2009 by expanding access
to the service to staff from the Ulm/Neu-Ulm Mercedes-Benz dealership
and Daimler’s EvoBus subsidiary. “That’s why we also upped the number
of car2go vehicles to 100,” says Henrich’s colleague Andreas Leo. “After
that, the number of users rose to more than 1,000.” With the launch of
the public test phase at the end of March, 200 car2go vehicles are now
available to all 120,000 Ulm residents, and to visitors to the city. The
number of registered users has also been growing steadily since then,
with more than 7,000 people registering in a period of less than two
months. On some days 200 new customer registrations were received.
The car2go program in Austin will follow along the lines of the one in Ulm
— in other words, the vehicles will initially be available only to a limited
group of users, such as city employees. Then, in the fall, a fleet that will
likely consist of 200 smart fortwos will go into operation. In a second
stage, car2go will be made available to the general public in Austin. With
a population of around 750,000, the capital of Texas is much larger than
Ulm, and its residents have a reputation for being very environmentally
conscious. Austin’s advanced economy also made the city the clear
24.06.2009 9:13:55 Uhr
HTR 01/2009
Texas, USA
choice for the first car2go project outside Germany. In addition, Austin
is home to the fourth -largest university in the United States. Finally, the
car-sharing market in the U.S. is growing faster than any other car-shar-
ing market in the world.
While the main objectives in Ulm are to assess the general level of ac-
ceptance for the concept and put the technology on a solid footing, the
project in Austin is intended to generate greater expertise for interna-
tional applications. “The requirements here,” says Jérome Guillen, direc-
tor of the Business Innovation department, “include concept transfer-
ability to other cities, language needs, and mobility trends, as well as the
adaptability of business processes to legal requirements at locations
around the world.”
Mobility Concepts
 WEB TIP
HTR online currently features a videocast
about the new, forward-looking mobility
concept. Reports from car2go customers
can be found at the car2go blog at:
http://blog.car2go.com
Complete information is online at www.car2go.com, which
also shows the locations of currently available vehicles.
www.daimler.com/innovation
57
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd 24.06.2009 10:32 Uhr Seite 1

58 Daimler

SAFETY
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd 24.06.2009 10:32 Uhr Seite 2

HTR 01/2009 Safety 59

NIGHT
SIGHT
Text Roland Bischoff

Variable headlights for enhanced safety Everything looks gray at night, including the road, which is why
Mercedes-Benz engineers are continuously working to further improve vehicles’ on-board lighting systems.
Thanks to their efforts, night driving will become even safer in the future in the new E-Class. The vehicle is
equipped with the Intelligent Light System, which was introduced in 2006 and ensures that drivers can
more easily see objects in the dark at greater distances. The E-Class will also feature the Adaptive High
Beam Assistant, a system that made its global debut this year and automatically adjusts the range of
the headlights for optimum visibility. The trio of safety features will be rounded out by the new Night View
Assist system, which illuminates the road with a dazzle-free infrared light and pro-actively notifies the driv-
er of any pedestrians it detects in the dark.
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd
60
D
arkness increases the level of risk.
This is why almost 40 percent of all fa-
tal traffic accidents in Germany occur
at night, although only 20 percent of driving
takes place during these hours. Safety could
be improved by enhancing headlights to en-
sure they provide better illumination. At least
that’s the conclusion of a study conducted
by the technical inspectorate TÜV, which
shows that approximately 23,000 traffic ac-
cidents involving around 1,200 fatalities
could be avoided every year in Germany if all
passenger vehicles were equipped with bi-
xenon headlights. For their part, accident re-
searchers at Germany’s Federal Highway Re-
search Institute are calling for mandatory
installation of variable headlights that would
better illuminate roads.
Variable range Mercedes-Benz has intro-
duced such a system onto the market in the
new E-Class. Known as the Adaptive High
Beam Assistant, it consists of two smart bi-
xenon headlights that continuously adjust
the car’s low beams so that their range varies
between 65 and 300 meters, depending on
traffic conditions.
The system ensures maximum possible illu-
mination of the road without blinding other
road users. If no preceding or oncoming ve-
hicles are detected, the system switches
smoothly to high beam.
Available as optional equipment, the Adap-
tive High Beam Assistant consists of two
components: a miniature camera with a built-
in control device and the adjustable 35 watt
headlights of the Intelligent Light System
(ILS), which was first introduced in 2006. Lo-
cated in front of the rear-view mirror, the
camera and its built-in control device are
housed in a casing the size of a pack of cig-
arettes. “The unit registers the different
sources of light in front of the vehicle and us-
es various algorithms to measure the dis-
tance with great precision,” explains Bernd
Woltermann, who is responsible for the
Adaptive High Beam Assistant at Mercedes-
Benz Development.
Adjusting commands in a fraction of a
second The control device’s software differ-
entiates betweens headlights, taillights,
streetlamps, and reflectors on lane markings.
24.06.2009 10:32 Uhr Seite 3
Daimler
In addition, it recognizes the level of ambient
brightness. If the latter is high — for example,
in a city illuminated by streetlamps — the sys-
tem switches off and the vehicle proceeds
only with the conventional low beam light.
In a dark environment, such as a country
road, the Adaptive High Beam Assistant au-
tomatically activates at speeds in excess of
55 kilometers per hour. The control device
then sends new adjusting commands to the
two headlights at very brief intervals in order
to make them continuously vary their cones
of light. In addition to the bi-xenon lamp, the
headlight contains three servo motors that
not only adjust the range and swivel the
lamps from side to side in response to curves
in the road, but also change the distribution
of bright and dark areas. In this way, the sys-
tem also takes into account the vehicle’s
speed, steering angle, and yaw rate.
Drivers can also switch the new assistant off
altogether. In such a situation, they have to
activate the high and low beams as usual.
When the system is active, it relieves the bur-
den on the driver and substantially improves
illumination. “The average driver uses the
“The light systems in the new E-Class
substantially enhance safety”
Uwe Kostanzer, Head of Light Systems Development at Mercedes-Benz Cars
high beam for only eight percent of a trip’s
duration; the new high beam assistant, on
the other hand, activates it 25 percent of the
time,” reports Uwe Kostanzer, Head of Light-
ing Systems Development at Mercedes-Benz
Cars. “In addition, for another 50 percent of
the time the assistant adaptively controls the
lights in the range between 65 and 300 me-
ters, thereby almost bridging the gap to the
high beam.”
Seeing roadside objects at long distances
Studies of test subjects have shown that the
Adaptive High Beam Assistant substantially
improves road illumination at night. The tests
demonstrated that the continuously adjust-
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd 24.06.2009 10:32 Uhr Seite 4

HTR 01/2009 Safety 61

Adaptive High Beam Assistant

Variably adjustable range The Adaptive High Beam Assistant further enhances safety by improving the
illumination of the road at night. It does not simply switch between high beam and low beam, but instead
adapts to the prevailing traffic conditions by controlling the distribution of the light. The low beam’s range
can be continuously increased from 65 to 300 meters. This ensures maximum illumination without blind-
ing other drivers.

If the camera system registers any oncoming or preceding vehicles, it continuously adjusts the range to en-
sure that the cone of light ends before it reaches the detected vehicles. The electronic control unit also takes
the steering angle into account in order to dim the headlights in tight curves. Along open stretches of road,
the assistant switches smoothly to high beam.
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd 24.06.2009
62
Night View
Assist PLUS
Quick detection of
figures in the dark
1 2
Thanks to infrared technol-
ogy, the new Night View
Assist not only displays a
high-resolution grayscale image
of the scene in front of the vehi-
cle; it also has a special pedes-
trian detection feature that reg-
isters any people on the road to
a distance of 90 meters and
highlights them on the display.
10:33 Uhr Seite 5
Adaptive High
Beam Assistant
Variable range
adjustment
Thanks to a windshield-
mounted camera, the op-
tional Adaptive High Beam
Assistant can detect preceding
or oncoming vehicles and control
the bi-xenon headlights so that
their beam always ends before it
reaches the other vehicles.
Daimler
Intelligent Light
System (ILS)
Better illumination of
country roads
3
The luminous, variably ad-
justable bi-xenon head-
lights serve as the basis of
the Intelligent Light System (ILS).
Instead of a low beam, the latter
has a country mode light that in-
creases the illumination on the
driver’s side over a greater dis-
tance. As a result, the driver’s
sense of orientation is better in
the dark and he or she can
respond faster — for example, if
other road users cross the road.
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd 24.06.2009 10:33 Uhr Seite 6

HTR 01/2009 Safety 63

Better illumination of Improved fog Active illumination of Good visibility at

highways penetration curves intersections

4 5
Above 90 kilometers per
hour, the highway mode
turns on, gradually extend-
ing visibility by up to 60 percent.
The headlights’ luminosity initial-
ly increases from 35 to 38 watts.
Beginning at a speed of 110 kilo-
meters per hour, the distribution
of the bi-xenon module’s light on
the driver’s side changes, ex-
tending the range to around 120
meters.
The expanded fog light
function is activated at
speeds below 70 kilome-
ters per hour, as soon as the rear
fog light is switched on. The
headlight on the driver’s side
then swivels outward by eight
degrees and simultaneously low-
ers the beam. This illuminates
the driver’s side of the lane more
brightly and reduces the glare
from reflected light in foggy con-
ditions.
6 7
The active light function
automatically activates in
line with the vehicle’s
steering angle, yaw rate, and
speed by swiveling the head-
lights by up to 15 degrees to the
side within seconds. When tak-
ing a sweeping curve with a ra-
dius of 190 meters, the system
allows the driver to see 25 me-
ters or 90 percent farther.
The cornering light func-
tion improves safety at
junctions, intersections
and in tight curves. It is auto-
matically activated if the driver
operates the indicators or turns
the steering wheel through a
large angle at speeds below 40
km/h or turns it slightly at be-
tween 40 and 70 km/h. The
headlights then illuminate the
side area ahead of the vehicle to
a range of around 30 meters at
an angle of up to 65 degrees.
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd 24.06.2009 10:33 Uhr Seite 7

64 Daimler
HTR_0109_E_Light System_58-65.qxd:00_00 Light System.qxd
HTR 01/2009
Variable high-tech headlights
improve traffic safety by radiating
more light onto the road.
“The new Night View Assist system’s
people detection feature helps drivers”
Joachim Missel, Head of Camera and Park Systems Development at Mercedes-Benz Cars
24.06.2009 10:33 Uhr
Safety
ed range of the headlights enabled drivers to
see farther and thus improved safety. The
new lighting function allowed motorists to
see pedestrian mock-ups along the roadside
at a distance of about 260 meters, or around
150 meters farther away than is possible
with headlights set to country mode.
More light since 2006 The high beam as-
sistant supplements the Intelligent Light Sys-
tem (ILS), which Mercedes-Benz introduced
in the E-Class in 2006 — the year in which
such systems became advanced enough to
fulfill legal requirements. Since then, it has
been installed in all of the subsequently of-
fered model series. The Intelligent Light Sys-
tem serves five functions: The country mode
improves illumination in the areas to the side
of the vehicle; the motorway mode extends
the range of sight by 50 meters; the expand-
ed fog light function brightens the left-hand
side of the lane and reduces self-dazzling; the
active light feature adjusts itself in line with
the course of the road; and the cornering
light function increases brightness at junc-
tions and intersections.
To further improve visibility in connection
with oncoming traffic in darkness, the new
E-Class can also be fitted with Night View As-
sist PLUS as an optional feature. Beginning
at a speed of about ten kilometers per hour,
the system illuminates nighttime roads with
two infrared lamps that are incorporated in
the main headlights. Although these lamps
have a range and beam characteristics simi-
lar to those of high beams, infrared (IR) light
is invisible to the human eye and therefore
does not cause glare.
Active infrared system A near-infrared
camera mounted next to the rear-view mirror
on the windshield scans the area in front of
the vehicle and transmits an image to the
dashboard display. The display’s high-defini-
Seite 8
65
tion, grayscale images of the nighttime scene
enable drivers to recognize pedestrians, cy-
clists, or other obstacles on the road at a
considerable distance, thereby reducing re-
sponse times. The new system also features
another special driver assistance function. “A
so-called object classifier continuously mon-
itors the images for objects whose form and
brightness correspond to that of a standing
or moving human being,” says Joachim Mis-
sel, Head of Camera and Park Systems De-
velopment at Mercedes-Benz Cars.
Automatic person recognition If the night
view system’s control unit detects any people
at a distance of up to about 90 meters in
front of the vehicle it highlights the image on
the display by inserting four corners that cre-
ate a sort of frame around the person in
question. “Not only were numerous test sub-
jects in favor of this type of depiction; it also
makes groups of people easily visible,” says
Missel. A small pedestrian icon that lights up
in the upper right corner of the display shows
the driver that the people recognition func-
tion is activated.
The active Night View Assist PLUS has a big
advantage over simple thermal-image night
vision systems: Its two infrared lamps create
high-contrast, high-resolution images not on-
ly of the road and adjacent areas but also of
any objects that may be present there.

WEB TIP
From the 1886
Daimler motor vehi-
cle’s candle lamps
to today’s cutting-
edge lighting sys-
tems — at HTR online, you can learn
more about lighting and safety.
Animation on the principle behind
the Adaptive High Beam Assistant
Videos on how the Adaptive High
Beam Assistant, Night View Assist,
and Intelligent Light System work
Article: “123 Years of Headlight
Technology at Mercedes-Benz”
www.daimler.com/innovation
 HTR_0109_E_Reflektor_66-67.qxd:66_67 Reflektor.qxd 24.06.2009 10:35 Uhr Seite 1

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REFLECTOR
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Five Questions for… Vinton Cerf

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the computers faster. Moreover, an increasing amount of the in-
http:// http:// http:// http:// http://
http:// http:// formation we need is accessible solely via a computer, and hence http:// http:// http://
http:// http:// we spend more time with PDAs, mobiles, laptops, etc. http:// http:// http://
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http:// http:// Do you entrust your best ideas to a machine or jot them http:// http:// http://
http:// http:// down on a piece of paper? http:// http:// http://
http:// http:// I make heavy use of computer records to document my work http:// http:// http://
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WEB TIP http:// http:// http://
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VINTON G. CERF
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http:// http:// The mathematician Vinton (“Vint”) G. computers. In the course of the ARPANET member of Google Inc.’s management http:// http:// http://
http:// http:// Cerf, who was born in 1943, is one of the project he created the basis of the Inter- team. HTR online features an extensive http:// http:// http://
http:// http:// http:// http:// http://
architects of the World Wide Web. In the net. Cerf received a Ph.D. in computer interview with Cerf about the mobile and
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www.daimler.com/innovation
http:// http:// packets through a distributed network of dent and Chief Internet Evangelist, he is a http:// http:// http://
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HTR_0109_E_U1-U4_ES.qxd:02_03 Starter.qxd 24.06.2009 9:25 Uhr Seite 4

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HTR_0109_E_U1-U4_ES.qxd:02_03 Starter.qxd 24.06.2009 9:25 Uhr Seite 1

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