High-end engineering for better mobility

Ralph Sali­ba, Pre­sident of IAV S.A.S.U., explains to us through this inter­view the holis­tic engi­nee­ring approach of his com­pa­ny and how they contri­bute to the deve­lop­ment of the mobi­li­ty of the future.

Through a holistic engineering approach, IAV has become synonymous with high-end engineering in the automotive industry worldwide. Tell us more about your positioning.

As one of the glo­bal­ly lea­ding engi­nee­ring part­ners, IAV deve­lops the mobi­li­ty of the future. Regard­less of the spe­ci­fic manu­fac­tu­rer, our engi­nee­ring proves itself in vehicles and tech­no­lo­gies all over the world. With more than 35 years of expe­rience and an unsur­pas­sed range of exper­tise, we com­bine the best of many dif­ferent worlds : auto­mo­tive and IT, hard­ware and soft­ware, pro­ducts and services. 

With our work­force of more than 8 000 employees and first-class tech­ni­cal resources, we help our cus­to­mers to imple­ment their pro­jects, from the concept right through to SOP. Our goal : bet­ter mobility.

Digital change is transforming the automotive industry at a rapid pace. What have you seen in this regard ?

The impact of digi­ta­li­za­tion is indeed signi­fi­cant : Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), Machine Lear­ning and Big Data are fin­ding their way into com­pa­nies. Our aim is to com­bine know­ledge from the various dis­ci­plines – from auto­no­mous sys­tems to the use of the latest AI tech­no­lo­gies – with know-how from the various fields. This is where domain meets tech­no­lo­gy. This mis­sion is dri­ven by our inno­va­tion pro­cess that is conti­nual­ly impro­ved with a constant cycle of know-how trans­fer. Ano­ther impor­tant com­ponent is the exchange with our research net­work. One of our core com­pe­ten­cies is to deve­lop new solu­tions for our cus­to­mers to achieve pro­duc­tion matu­ri­ty in a reliable way. Eve­ry day, we are dea­ling with increa­sin­gly com­plex sys­tems, higher qua­li­ty requi­re­ments, increa­sing docu­men­ta­tion efforts and shor­ter deve­lop­ment times. Digi­ta­li­za­tion helps eve­ryone in the indus­try to meet and mas­ter these chal­lenges effectively.

The auto­mo­tive sec­tor gene­rates an extre­me­ly large amount of data. There is a lot of poten­tial, but the sys­te­ma­tic eva­lua­tion of this data is a major chal­lenge. We must focus on smart infor­ma­tion gathe­ring. We also see a big lever in vir­tua­li­za­tion and many oppor­tu­ni­ties in the use of rein­for­ce­ment lear­ning. It is always a mat­ter of fin­ding new or even bet­ter solu­tions. As a lea­ding deve­lop­ment part­ner, we can­not afford to stand idle and have the­re­fore wor­ked suc­cess­ful­ly on core tech­no­lo­gies in the past. The task now is to deploy these new tech­no­lo­gies across the board.

In which digitization technologies do you see the greatest potential for the automotive industry ?

Visual Simul­ta­neous Loca­li­za­tion and Map­ping (vSLAM) opens up a pro­mi­sing oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring intel­li­gent envi­ron­men­tal per­cep­tion into series pro­ducts in a cost-effec­tive and sca­lable way. It can also sup­ple­ment or even replace lidar sys­tems of high­ly auto­ma­ted vehicles. IAV has deve­lo­ped its own algo­rithm for this pur­pose, with a focus on appli­ca­tions in the mobi­li­ty sec­tor. In addi­tion, soft­ware tests are com­plex and increa­sin­gly auto­ma­ted. An AI-based solu­tion from IAV acce­le­rates this pro­cess : It creates test scripts from the manual test des­crip­tions and achieves a high degree of accu­ra­cy in the selec­tion of auto­ma­tion com­po­nents. Test auto­ma­tion is beco­ming increa­sin­gly impor­tant : many com­pa­nies rely on machine assis­tance for soft­ware qua­li­ty assu­rance because it increases effi­cien­cy and allows them to run tests independently. 

This saves valuable time and reduces costs. We have the­re­fore set our­selves the goal of noti­cea­bly acce­le­ra­ting the imple­men­ta­tion of test auto­ma­tion with the help of arti­fi­cial intelligence.

Besides, IAV is invol­ved in a research pro­ject with more than 60 Work XL street scoo­ters from Deutsche Post DHL. We are exa­mi­ning the flexi­bi­li­ty poten­tial of elec­tric fleets and the pos­si­bi­li­ties of intel­li­gent net­work inte­gra­tion. Elec­tric mobi­li­ty is beco­ming increa­sin­gly popu­lar and the demand for elec­tri­ci­ty is growing.

The dan­ger : without intel­li­gent plan­ning, the sup­ply and demand of ener­gy can become unba­lan­ced at peak times. 

To prevent this, IAV, the Rei­ner Lemoine Ins­ti­tute and E.DIS Netz have joi­ned forces in a research pro­ject spe­ci­fied as « intel­li­gent grid inte­gra­tion of elec­tri­fied logis­tics ». The aim is to deve­lop a pro­ce­dure for auto­ma­ted load and charge mana­ge­ment, so that the entire vehicle fleet can be ope­ra­ted in a grid-com­pa­tible man­ner and thus make its own contri­bu­tion towards grid stabilization. 

The idea is to use tar­ge­ted, time-control­led load shifts to pre­dic­ti­ve­ly avoid pos­sible grid bot­tle­necks on the one hand and thus ensure that the fleet is char­ged, and on the other hand to com­pen­sate for the peaks in the feed-in of rene­wable ener­gies into the grid.

What are your perspectives in this context ?

In the future, IAV intends to dis­tin­guish itself even more as a tech pro­vi­der. Cus­to­mers should turn to us with all ques­tions rela­ting to digi­ta­li­za­tion and the use of new tech­no­lo­gies. As of today, IAV alrea­dy owns the best deve­lop­ment methods and serves cus­to­mers who entrust us with their most deman­ding and suc­cess-cri­ti­cal topics and pro­jects. There can be no bet­ter basis for IAV as a deve­lop­ment partner. 

This trust ensures that our exper­tise is increa­sin­gly appre­cia­ted and in demand beyond the auto­mo­tive indus­try. This is not an end in itself, because in a digi­tal and net­wor­ked world, uni­ver­sal cross-sys­tem solu­tions are impor­tant – solu­tions that trans­cend indus­trial sec­tor boun­da­ries. That is what IAV alrea­dy offers to its cus­to­mers today. 

IAV in France

• Full range of power­train engi­nee­ring and tes­ting ser­vices, from bench­mar­king to turn­key projects
• Recent invest­ment in 48V sys­tem e‑testing
• Exten­ded offer thanks to our long term rela­tion­ships and net­work of local part­ners, in France and near­shore regions
• Key refe­rences on stra­te­gic tech­no­lo­gies deve­lop­ment such as high-vol­tage bat­te­ries (HW & SW), com­bus­tion and after-treat­ment tech­no­lo­gies, alter­na­tive fuels, hydro­gen and fuel cell…
• Lea­ding engi­nee­ring part­ner in France in ADAS and AD func­tions deve­lop­ment, inte­gra­tion and vali­da­tion, from research to series applications
• Inno­va­tion pro­jects under­way with the best Euro­pean labs and PhDs to fos­ter crea­ti­vi­ty and a dis­rup­tive approach in auto­ma­ted dri­ving, from Level 3 to Level 5
• Teams of high­ly skilled and flexible tech­ni­cians and engineers
• france@iav.de

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