Smart driving chassis by ZF for autonomous driving

The IDDC – Intelligent dynamic driving chassis – by ZF combines innovative chassis systems, electric drives and environmental sensors with hardware and software to create a skateboard autonomous driving platform. The platform can enable vehicles to see, think and act, allowing to navigate through the city without a human driver.

The solution is suitable for vehicle concepts such as the Rinspeed Snap, where the driving chassis from ZF is intended to be used round the clock in continuous operation. The core of the IDDC is the mStars (modular semi-trailing arm rear suspension) modular rear axle system that integrates the active kinematics control (AKC) rear axle steering, which raises its maximum steering angle to 14 degrees for the Rinspeed Snap. The electric motor and power electronics are positioned inside the axle as well, to drive the vehicle efficiently.

In the front axle, a system called Easy Turn enables an expansive steering angle of up to 75 degrees, thanks to the interaction with ZF’s modified electric power steering. Thanks to the AKC on the rear axle, the Rinspeed Snap can nearly pirouette on the spot, a huge advantage in terms of agility in crowded city centers. ZF has also integrated hardware and software into the chassis so that the IDDC can detect its surroundings even without the pod, using radar systems, lidar technology, which ZF developed jointly with Ibeo Automotive Systems, and camera systems. This enables 360-degree environmental detection for both long-range and short-range applications at virtually all typical city speeds and in all light and weather conditions.

In the future, data from all components, systems and sensors in the IDDC as well as from car-to-x communication will be analysed and processed together on a central supercomputer called ZF ProAI, developed in cooperation with Nvidia, to help instruct the actuators. The control box will also use artificial intelligence and deep learning capabilities, which are additional factors for ensuring the development of autonomous driving.

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