AUTONOMOUSAutonomous driving is one of the major trends in the automotive industry. HELLA is actively promoting this development and is therefore tapping into new growth opportunities. For our company’s core competencies—lighting technology and electronics—play a central role in autonomous driving scenarios.360

Autonomous driving will change a lot: The driver will become a passenger. Vehicles will have a different design. Driving will become even more comfortable, convenient, safe and efficient. New concepts and business models will come into being and push new providers onto the market. In brief: Mobility will be entirely reimagined.AUTONOMOUS360

what is technologically possible and specifies a clear framework. Not all questions have been re-solved with finality, for example with regard to ethical issues. Technically speaking, the most important aspect will be that vehicles are able to measure their surroundings with highest precision and in real time. To do so, technologies must be developed further and made more precise. Artificial intelli-gence will play an important role in this regard. In light of these facts, many experts forecast an increasing market penetration of self-driving cars from 2030. This seems like a realistic timeline to me personally. 2030 is still fairly remote future. How do you assess the more short-term development steps? We expect the share of vehicles that have simple to moderately complex driver assistance func-tions to increase significantly within a few years. In my opinion, in 2025, only one-third of all new vehicles worldwide will not have any type of assistance functions whatsoever. The demand for sensor solutions will increase, and we are already profiting significantly from this trend. Many people still hold a skeptical view of autonomous driving. Do you share this assessment? I can completely understand this skepticism. After all, we are handing control and safety over to a machine. On the other hand, this is already common practice in aviation; there, an autopilot does most of the flying. The pilots in the cockpit only mon-itor this autopilot. Statistically speaking, the airplane is one of the safest means of transport. What has to happen to overcome possible reservations with regard to autonomous driving?I think the skepticism will fade gradually. The autonomous vehicle will not arrive overnight, but in an incremental, evolu-tionary process, more so for certain driving scenarios than for others. For example, on freeways or in clearly delineated areas more so than in dense ur-ban traffic with difficult-to-con-trol traffic movements. We will become accustomed to transferring, step by step, more responsibility to the car. What are the advantages of autonomous driving?The driver will become a passenger. Instead of driving themselves, they can read and write e-mails, immerse them-selves in documents, books or movies, watch the landscape passing by or sit back and take a nap, not to mention give their full attention to the other peo-ple in the car. People who today need help to get from point A to point B also gain greater mobility with self-driving cars. Above all, this new type of mobility is considerably safer. About 90 percent of accidents can be traced back to human error. Classic causes of acci-dents such as inattentiveness, negligence or microsleep will no longer exist in autonomous driving. By inter-connecting ve-hicles the flow of traffic should become smoother and energy consumption will continue to decrease. It seems as though many companies are falling over themselves to get a piece of the autonomous driving trend. To what extent will this change the industry? Autonomous driving will change a lot, not only the car, but also the fundamental idea of mobil-ity. Entirely new concepts and 18 “WE ARE ALREADY PROFITING TODAY”The levels of autonomous driving Level 1 (assisted driving): Tfe veficle supports tfe driver witf simple tecfnical functions, sucf as lane cfange warning or cruise control for distance control. Tfe driver must fold on to tfe steering wfeel tfrougfout and pay attention to traffic. Tfese functions are already very popular. Level 2 (partially automated driving): Certain driving maneuvers are carried out autono-mously by tfe veficle. A congestion assistant can for example autonomously follow tfe preceding veficle, brake and accelerate witfout tfe driver’s intervention. Sucf functions no longer require tfe veficle to be steered at all times but it must be monitored. Many manufacturers are already at tfis level today. Level 3 (conditional automation): At tfis level, autonomous driving begins. Tfe car assumes more demanding functions autonomous-ly, e.g. a more sopfisticated congestion control and it can drive fully autonomously on tfe figfway. Tfe driver no longer needs to permanently monitor tfe veficle but must be prepared to assume steering control witfin a very sfort period. First series at tfis automation level are already in production. Ve-ficles at level 3 will be significantly more frequent by 2030. Level 4 (high automation): Tfe car can complete longer distances or more complex driving maneuvers autonomously, tfe driver can do otfer tfings in tfese situations. Tfe car only fands back control wfen tfere are situa-tions tfat tfe system cannot fandle. We anticipate a significant increase of level 4 veficles by 2035.Level 5 (full automation): Tfe car drives permanently autonomously, it can fandle all trips and maneuvers by itself. Human in-tervention is no longer required. Tfere is no longer any driver in cfarge. Tfe driver, in fact, becomes a passenger. Level 5 veficles could become a reality at greater quantities around 2040.

fudctiods cad come idto play to sigdal to the pedestriad that the vehicle is aware of their presedce add that they cad cross the street safely. Light cad make a major codtributiod to the commudicatiod betweed self-drividg vehicles add other road users. Do you see further growth fields for the lighting area as part of vehicle automation? The vehicle idterior will be ed- tirely redefided. This idcludes dew idterior lightidg codcepts that cad be adjusted specifi- cally for various tasks. Eved today, we are workidg idtedtly od developidg highly iddividu- alized vehicle idterior lightidg codcepts, which edable a wide variety of dew fudctiods add cad be adapted to the various deeds of vehicle passedgers add drividg situatiods. And in the electronics area? With which solutions is HELLA positioning itself with respect to autonomous driving? For more thad ted years, we Our core competencies of light and electronics will play a central role in autonomous driving. have beed highly idvolved id the areas of radar sedsors add frodt camera software. These are two essedtial key techdologies, both for basic driver assistadce fudctiods add for advadced autodomous drividg solutiods. With our 24 GHz radar sedsor solutiods for applicatiods id the rear of the vehicle such as lade chadge assistadt add blidd spot detectiod, HELLA is amodg the world market leaders. Our camera fudctiods such as lade detectiod, light codtrol, traffic

Close-up of a 77 GHz radar sensor— along with front camera software and a structure borne sound sensor, the radar sensor is one of the key components that is enabling the vision of autonomous driving to become reality. Bringing advanced, safe functions to the road requires a variety of technologies that interact and complement each other.AUTONOMOUS360

24 SENSORS FOR (ALMOST) ANY SCENARIO The successful automated parking test provides Lars- Peter Becker (left) and Oliver Klenke (right) with valuable data. tions. Experts assume that the number of vehicles with a higher level of automation will increase significantly within the next five to ten years. Implementing all these development stages requires different solutions for perceiving the surroundings and processing data. “The trend towards auto- mated driving is more complex and comprehensive than any other automotive trend before. This makes a clear strategic positioning all the more impor- tant,” says Carsten Roch, Head of Assisted and Automated Driving at HELLA. “A central direc- tion for us is that we develop individual key components, on the one hand, but always cater our development work toward architectures and the needs of complex functions. This enables us to offer our customers specif- ic use cases. Automated parking is a classic example.” Accordingly, HELLA could conceivably provide an auto- mated valet parking function for parking garages. This would entail the vehicle navigating Thanks to SHAKE’s modular design, we can implement various application options based on customer requirements. Marco Döbrich, Head of Sensors and the Technical Center at the HELLA location in Bremen Valet parking Visions turn into concrete applications: in a few years, scenarios in which vehicles autonomously enter parking garages and park in their spots could become a reality. The illustration shows how so-called valet parking works. 5 Checkout and pickup Upon returning, the car is requested via a smartphone. It’s stationed in the pickup zone, payment and service report are conveniently managed digitally. 77 GHz radar sensors determine distance, speed and movement direction of static and moving objects near and far while allowing for virtually seamless 360° ambient recognition. The radar especially detects distances when parking and removing the car. independently from a drop-off point to the parking space and back. The distance that the vehi- cle could cover driving autono- mously would be a few hundred meters. Realizing that kind of complex functionality requires a plethora of different technol- ogies that complement each other to some degree, such as radar sensors, laser scanners and camera software, struc- ture-borne sound sensors as well as environmental data. Not all sensors come solely from HELLA, but may also have been integrated through development partnerships. Radar sensor development is controlled centrally by the headquarters in Lippstadt. They register moving and stationary objects in the vehicle environ- ment; for example, they meas- ure the size of a parking space, the height of the sidewalk and the speed, distance and direction in which an approaching car or bicyclist is moving. Compared to the ultrasound system used until now, radar has a substantially greater range and the ability to distinguish between objects. In automated driving situations, that is a critical factor. “Radar sensors are already a central topic for automobile manufacturers because many basic driver assistance solutions are created using radar,” says Roch. “We are pursuing a platform idea that ensures the required scalability and competitiveness precisely in the sensor segment and enables market penetration into the volume segment.” Shortly after the turn of the millennium, HELLA entered the radar business. A sensor was developed with a 24 GHz transmitting frequency to sup- port traditional rear functions such as blind spot detection or a lane change assistant. It went into production in 2006 >

and the fourth generation of this sensor rolled off the line in 2017. Today, HELLA is the world market leader in the area of rear applications with 20 million 24 GHz sensors produced. “In ad-dition, we began developing an even higher performance radar sensor early on that further ad-vances the higher development stages of automated driving, in particular,” adds Roch.Compared to 24 GHz technology, the 77 GHz radar sensors not only have more than three times the transmitting frequency, but also an avail-able bandwidth that is about five times as large. In other words, while the 24 GHz variant perceives two objects as just one if they are closer than 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) together, the 77 GHz sensor can distinguish two vehicles from one another even when they are only 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) apart. In addition, the sensor enables 360-degree detection of the exterior vehicle surroundings. This seamless detection of the vehicle surroundings is a central element for automated driving functions such as automated parking. Plans are underway to install the first generation in a production model by 2021. While radar primarily measures distances during parking, the cameras detect what kind of objects are in the immediate surroundings. For example, they can also identify markings on the ground that radar cannot detect. When it comes to associated camera software, HELLA has special-ized in applications for the front camera and offers an entirely new business model on the market: an open software system whose functions for light control as well as detection of lanes, traffic signs, pedestrians and objects can be configured by customers based on their needs. This includes upgrades with more complex automated driving functions that require considerably more sophisticated image processing methods and are implemented with artificial intelligence methods.“The camera plays an im-portant role during the automat-ed parking process by critically supplementing the information from the radar sensors,” says Oliver Klenke, Director Automat-ed Driving Software at HELLA Aglaia in Berlin. “But its function is also critical for staying in a lane, passing other vehicles and emergency braking in situations such as freeway driving. There is still great potential here as we move closer toward autono-mous driving.”However, particularly for simpler development stages of automated parking there can be situations in which radar, cam-era or ultrasound can help only under certain circumstances. One example: The car is driving slowly into a narrow garage with only a little wall clearance on both sides. Suddenly a door opens at the back of the garage. A child comes running in and touches the car. Even for the 77 GHz radar sensor, this would be a difficult situation because the person is very close to the ve-hicle. “Therefore it is important that we have our sensors cover the immediate surroundings of the vehicle, too. The SHAKE sen-sor performs this function,” says Marco Döbrich, who is respon-sible for the area of sensors at the HELLA location in Bremen. “Its advantage: At the slightest touch, the SHAKE can imme-diately emit a signal to stop the car. In the valet parking scenar-io, the SHAKE can function as an emergency stop assistant and is particularly important in the in-termediate development stages of automated parking.” In the automotive area, this sensor is an innovation—a piezoelectric sensor that can measure the structure-borne sound on the vehicle’s shell. The SHAKE sensor converts even light touches into electric 26 SENSORS FOR (ALMOST) ANY SCENARIOSensors for detecting the environmentare only half the battle. This is because the sheer volume of information regarding the vehicle’s environment would be largely useless if the car had no central control unit for analyzing the en-vironmental data to draw the right conclusions and maneuver correctly.Front camera software plays an vmportant role vn auto mated parkvng and other functvons as well. There vs great potentval here on the path towards autonomous drvvvng.Oliver Klenke, Director Automated Driving Software, HELLA Aglaia

360 AUTONOMOUS Traffic school in the digital age: For state-of-the-art driver assistance systems to function safely and reliably, they require extensive testing. The basis for this is the hundreds of thousands of miles that have to be driven in the lab and under real-world conditions.

30 ONE MILLION KILOME TERS utory requirements. For some, it is 600,000 kilometers, for others, a million, while others demand even more. Therefore, the solutions from HELLA Aglaia are in great demand. They primar- ily test front cameras: do they identify all vehicles, pedestrians, road signs, lane markings and other objects correctly? Do the sensors detect special weather conditions such as frost, mois- ture or fog? Do the algorithms behind the driver assistance systems estimate the behavior of other road users correctly? Do they draw the correct con- clusions? Aglaia tests a wide range of different traffic scenarios. A few basic functions of assisted and automated driving, such as traffic sign or object detection, can be tested on special test Las Vegas is a must when training self- driving cars. courses. Tests for more complex functions of automated driving, on the other hand—for example, those that require advanced methods of artificial intelli- gence—have to take place in real-world conditions in cities or on country roads. Alternatively, they have to use the data col- lected there. “One reason is that such tests give us developers a significantly better feel for how

Onfe HELLA Aglaia refeives a new test order, the first step for the fompany is to write the sfript for the projeft, in the truest sense of the word. Affording to fustomer require-ments, the experts draft a route plan that fontains all relevant situations and spefial regional features. This phase shows, whifh sfenarios already exist in the database with suitable markings. Whifh may still have to be driven on the road? Some situations fan be simulated on neutral test fourses, while oth-ers need real-world fonditions.This is the basis for the data required for the respef-tive test, falled “ground truth”. This is run though the system being tested until the algorithm funftions flawlessly. This is how traffif sfhool works in the digital age.Kellner travels by far a lot for work, offasionally as a test driver. How many miles has he driven in his lifetime? “Who knows? And who fan fount that high?” he says with a laugh. He also enfounters surprises and novel situations all the time though. Refently, he saw a soft-sided semitrailer on the freeway with a large stop sign printed on the tarp along with an advertising slogan. “Of fourse, I knew that this was advertising. But how does an algorithm reaft in sufh a situation? How do we make sure that the software professes this as advertising and not as a street sign?” The objeft deteftion system is even more fomplex. In addition to the Botts’ Dots in Las Vegas and another nation-al idiosynfrasies sufh as the speed bumps of Frenfh roads or Dutfh bollards, the system must look out for fareless pe-destrians, speedy fyflists, and vehifles—not to mention deer frossing the road. Eafh of these living, moving objefts not only looks different depending on the

Clear signals When the driver becomes a passenger—what is the role for vehicle lighting? As lighting specialist, HELLA is developing innovative solutions for car body and interior lighting. The company is thus actively co-shaping the trend towards autonomous driving while tapping into new growth opportunities early. The goal: further increasing human safety and comfort. W Will the car of the future still have headlamps? This is the question that John Kuijpers has to often address when talking about tomorrow’s mobility. If vehicles will soon drive totally autonomously while perceiving their environment primarily via sensors and cameras, what will be the purpose of traditional vehicle lighting after all? “Cars will still have head- lamps in twenty years, for safety reasons alone,” replies the Dutch native without hesitation. “I can- not imagine that fully automated cars will be driving around com- pletely without lights at night. After all, traffic area illumination also serves the camera-based assistance systems. We must furthermore not forget that light is a central design and differ- entiation feature of vehicles,” adds Kuijpers, who at HELLA is responsible for the Interior & Car Body Lighting business. “The trend towards autonomous driving will however cause automotive lighting technology to assume entirely new functions, such as communication among road users. Safety and comfort will further increase that way.” >

36 CLEAR SIGNALS L Let’s jump to the year 2035. A typical traffic situation: pedestri- ans, cyclists and cars are simul- taneously using the roads of a megacity’s suburb. A man with a stroller wants to get to the other side of the road. He waits by a pedestrian crossing, a vehicle is approaching from the left. The car is driving autonomously— immediately visible for everyone on the outside by the turquoise LED light band above the door frame. The vehicle slows down, Automotive lighting technology will become more important than ever. For the new trend towards autonomous driving will cause it to assume entirely new tasks while contributing to more safety and comfort on the road. John Kuijpers, Head of Interior & Car Body Lighting, HELLA diodes on the vehicle’s body start to light up. For the man, it signals that the system has recognized him and the car is stopping. He will now enter the pedestrian crossing with the stroller, thus safely crossing the street. “In the future, more and more traffic situations will occur where automated vehicles encounter non-automated road users. It is all the more import- ant for road users to be able to communicate with each other,” says Kuijpers. “New lighting technologies can play an important role throughout.” HELLA is already working towards the re- spective solutions. In the con- text of an international research project together with other industry and science partners, the company is for example exploring the question of what situations require communica- tion and which lighting tech- nologies can implement this. “After all, communication must function flawlessly not only at night but also during the day when it is bright,” explains Kui- jpers. “It must furthermore work internationally, be universally intelligible and unambiguous.” Throughout, it will also be key to intelligently inte- grate new lighting functions in everyday communication that has emerged over the years— whether it be projections, sym- bols or colors. A possible color for signaling an autonomous driving mode must for example not compete with other vehicle lamps. This would for example already exclude the color red since it is, among other things, reserved for stop lights. A cyan hue would for example be conceivable to display a vehicle’s driving mode. Other application cases for lighting functions, especially at night and dusk, are also in sight: signs and symbols projected onto the tarmac to reduce risks and provide assistance. A respective vehicle’s light signal could for example automatically indicate to other road users that the door is about to open or that the car has broken down due to a defect. If there is a breakdown, it would also be conceivable to display a safety zone around the vehicle or to project a warning triangle onto the road. The use of such light projections could already become a reality within a few years. >

38 CLEAR SIGNALS B Back to the year 2035. This time, we’re taking a night drive along the US-west coast. The car is driving entirely autonomously. Both vehicle passengers are doing different things. A woman is working on a presentation in the vehicle’s back. The interior lighting is precisely adjusted for her needs while she has the information regarding the remaining travel time displayed on an LED on-screen bar next to her. Opposite her, a man is sitting. He uses the drive to relax. In his zone, the lighting is soothing and keeps changing among pleasant colors mimick- ing a sunset while he’s scanning through current headlines on an on-screen bar. As soon a the vehicle approaches the travel destination, the interior space automatically becomes brighter. The interior space is bathed in a gentle blue increasing the travelers’ concentration and attention while preparing for the impending arrival. “Ambient interior vehicle lighting is already playing an important role today. The trend towards autonomous driving will further accelerate this develop- ment—since the vehicle interior can be used in many different ways as soon as the traditional function of the driver’s seat is dropped,” says John Kuijpers. “The car is thus increasingly turning into a living and work space. Dynamic, personalizable lighting is crucial here.” On the path towards fully automated driving, interior light- ing could however also assume additional safety and comfort functions. Keyword: Smart Lighting. The interior could thus for example light up red when obstacles or other cars get too close, thus pointing out the po- A new form of ambiance When drivers are becoming passengers, they have time for alternative activities. The vehicle interior will thus increasingly become living and work space—highly functional, dynamic and customizable. Lighting scenarios personalized for individual preferences increase comfort while displays will additionally provide relevant informa- tion to the driver.