The two latest BME spin-offs are already in operation

Products of an enterprise partly owned by the university can remotely control autonomous vehicles with driving skills surpassing that of a professional driver.

“In addition to their innovative products, the particular significance of the two companies lies in the fact that the intellectual products generated in their scientific workshops are used in the enterprises created with the university’s ownership, and as a results the profit generated in the business is reinvested into higher education,” expressed professor Zsolt Szalay, head of the BME Department of Vehicle Technology of the Faculty of Transportation Engineering and Vehicle Engineering (BME KJK). He added that the two companies were registered after two years of preparation on 16 May 2023, each founded by 5 research engineers, and their purpose is to promote industrial and business use of the developments and results of the research groups working at the department. The development of the innovations intended to be utilized by the spinoffs was significantly supported by the fact that they were able to test these technologies on the Zala ZONE Automotive Test Track.

DriveByCloud Kft.

The main product of this university spin-off is a framework system, in which the professionals can generate a digital twin to real vehicle driving environments. Apart from a static digital map of the real environment, dynamic elements (e.g. vehicles and pedestrians), temporary conditions (e.g. lane diversions) or weather conditions may also be displayed among other things.

This system, developed at BME KJK may lend itself to test autonomous vehicles without having to create all conditions in the reality; some of them maybe displayed in the virtual space and the vehicle will detect them as real ones. One benefit of this solution is that dangerous test situations can be carried out in safety.

The solution also allows for traffic analyses to be made using road sensors, enabling the forecast of accident risks as well, based on traffic data. When a self-driving, a.k.a. autonomous vehicle is also travelling as part of the system, its control can be adapted to the traffic situations calculated in advance.

“Teleoperation of the vehicles, i.e. a remote control of the cars will also be provided through this cloud-based system. This solution allows for the forwarding of shared cars from one user to the next with remote control, or for the forwarding of agricultural vehicles to the work area. The same function may be applied at logistics centres or airports for the human remote control of heavy vehicles in dangerous environments,” Zsolt Vincze, executive manager of DriveByCloud Kft and associate at the BME KJK Department of Vehicle Technology explained the functionality of the system developed by the university.

The BME professionals also pointed out that at a certain stage of the development of autonomous vehicles and the environmental infrastructure, the human remote control of vehicle movements between zones providing for autonomous driving will also become an important function. Teleoperation in this case supplements autonomous operation, when the various vehicles are “driven” by a person staying in a centre far away from those vehicles. They added that the digital twin solution may also provide for area surveillance and security functions to detect illegal entry with the use of remote controlled vehicles and drones.

iMotionDrive Kft.

The university’s iMotionDrive Kft spin-off offers software products for the control of autonomous vehicles. The market position and the protection of intellectual property of the company are secured by the international patent application filed earlier by BME.

The autonomous vehicle in the pipeline, developed using artificial intelligence, will be able to exceed the driving skills of a professional driver. In a situation, where the vehicle has reached the limits of its grip, an average driver often loses control of the vehicle leading to an accident.

Ádám Bárdos, executive manager of iMotionDrive Kft and associate of the BME KJK Vehicle Technology department says that “car industry has entered a new era, where software has become an element of unprecedented significance, often exceeding the importance of physically tangible elements. BME contributes to this new era, building on the results of the research pool of the Hungarian higher education.”

Solutions by iMotionDrive allows for safe manoeuvring at physical limits with the active involvement of the driver or in a fully autonomous mode. As part of the research conducted at the department, the public has already witnessed the autonomous drifting function. They have seen that the vehicle remains able to automatically plan and follow a route to the centimetre, when its rear wheels have reached their limit of grip and it is turning left while its steered wheels are still facing right. Quick and accurate decisions of the driver and use of the vehicles full physical capabilities are key in critical traffic situation in order to avoid accidents with severe consequences.

The autonomous technology by iMotionDrive opens new dimension to vehicle movements, optimizing and speeding up decisions, which will help avoid a number of accidents in the future. The new portfolio of the company founded at BME offers good potential in driver training programmes, in motorsports as well as in automatic or driver-supporting control of off-road and military vehicles.

Rector’s Cabinet Communications Directorate