Advanced! BMW Factory In Dinoflfing And Leipzig Autonomous Vehicle Technology Adoption

BMW cars that can move independently on the assembly line. (Doc. BMW Group)

JAKARTA - German automotive company BMW Group continues to offer innovative technologies including boosting digitalization and automation of production processes.

Now, they have implemented autonomous driving production technology for every new vehicle produced at its largest factory in Digolfing, Germany.

Since 2022, the company has been testing a system called Automated Driving In-Plant (AFW) for new vehicles in Digolfing and now the AFW system has also been used at its factory in Leipzig, Germany with other production network facilities following in stages.

BMW AG Production Board of Management, Milan Nedeljkovic said the system is very useful for facilitating production processes from BMW and Mini cars in order to increase time efficiency.

"Automated Driving In-Plant optimizes our production process and provides a significant increase in efficiency for our logistics," Nedeljkovic said on the company's official website, Thursday, November 28.

This automated driving system technology is used in Series-5 and Series-7 production in Digolfing and Mini Countryman at Leipzig. The vehicle produced is fully autonomous driving - along a route of more than one kilometer, from two assembly halls, via short test tracks, to the finishing area.

This is made possible by sensors installed along routes, creating the largest LIDAR infrastructure in Europe and relying on externally generated models and external movement planners.

Despite the choice of vehicle equipment, the system controls its automatic movement, using state-of-the-art Cloud architecture.

Part of this technology has been provided by Swiss company Embotech AG. They have collaborated with the BMW Group in the early stages through the BMW Start-Up Garage venture client unit.

The Leipzig plant plans to introduce automatic propulsion for about 90 percent of the BMW and MINI models produced there, and the Regensburg and Oxford Factories will follow in 2025. The new plant in Debrecen, Hungary, will also implement this technology since the official launch of its future car.