Mobility

A team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a new early warning system for vehicles that uses artificial intelligence to learn from thousands of real traffic situations. A study of the system was carried out in cooperation with the BMW Group. The results show that, if used in today’s self-driving vehicles, it can warn seven seconds in advance against potentially critical situations that the cars cannot handle alone – with over 85% accuracy.

Unlike the classic bicycle, the handbike is powered by the arms and is one of the most popular pieces of sports equipment among paraplegics. But there's one major drawback: While on the go with a handbike, the rider has no wheelchair handy, for example to go shopping or go to a restroom. The new hybrid "BikAble" design, developed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), combines the functions of the sports apparatus and the wheelchair.

From hologram-based communications to remote-controlled surgical procedures – the 6G wireless standard will make many high-tech applications a reality. A major project now being launched at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) aims to establish the key technical criteria for the new standard. In this interview, project leader Prof. Wolfgang Kellerer explains how 6G will become the most intelligent wireless network, when Germany could take on a leading role and why, in the world of research, new speed records are less important than ensuring 99.999999999% reliability.

Cargo bikes could play a much bigger role in urban package delivery. This conclusion was reached in a study based on the cities of Munich and Regensburg, where around one seventh of delivery-related CO2 emissions could be reduced. The research team has developed a planning tool to help companies and municipalities identify the potential for cargo bikes in city districts.

At stake: a science-focused high-tech race that happens underground. TUM Boring – a student group at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) – is taking part in the contest, launched by US billionaire Elon Musk, to develop the world’s fastest tunnel boring machine. And the team has already scored a big success: TUM Boring has qualified for the final in California this summer. In an interview, Haokun Zheng, one of the team leaders, explains the challenges facing the students.

Is hydrogen the energy carrier of tomorrow? In their report, Caroline du Bled and Gunnar Mergener show examples of how the hydrogen economy of the future could look like. They visited the Chair of Technical Electrochemistry at the Technical University of Munich, which researches the further development of fuel cells. The film shows, among other things, how iron can be produced by reduction with hydrogen and how a fuel cell is built.

The Munich Cluster for the Future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions (M Cube), under the leadership of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), is among the winners of the German government’s Clusters4Future competition. M Cube will be launched in October 2021 and will receive up to 45 million euros in funding over a nine-year period. The regional network will bring together an interdisciplinary team of researchers along with partners from the private sector and civil society to work on the major challenges in the mobility sector.

Before autonomous vehicles participate in road traffic, they must demonstrate conclusively that they do not pose a danger to others. New software developed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) prevents accidents by predicting different variants of a traffic situation every millisecond.

It is designed to move passengers at close to the speed of sound: the Hyperloop. In international competitions, students of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have already demonstrated that they can build passenger pod prototypes that leave their competitors far behind. Now they will team up with scientists in a research program intended to make the super-fast train a reality. The program will involve, among other things, building a 24-meter test tube and a full-size prototype.

Its product is designed to impact the future of mobility: Lilium, a start-up founded at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), is developing an electric-powered flying taxi. Based on its technology and the successes of the latest funding round, the company is now valued at over $1 billion. This places it alongside the world's most successful start-ups: the "unicorns". Following Celonis, which achieved unicorn status in 2018, Lilium is the second start-up founded at TUM to join this elite club.