Supplier Innovations
Electric Mobility
“Electromobility, in the sense of the federal government, includes all vehicles that are driven by an electric motor and that draw their energy mainly from the power grid, that is, they can be charged externally.
This also includes vehicles that have an electric motor as well as an internal combustion engine for the purpose of greater range, such as plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) and electric vehicles with so-called range extenders (REEV).” - German Ministry of Environment of Electromobility. ZF´s Division Electrified Powertrain Technology bundles the competencies for electric drives. The product portfolio includes electric traction drives for hybrid and electric vehicles, electronic systems, axle drives and electronic interfaces for the vehicle interior.
Integrated Safety
Integrated vehicle safety connects active and passive safety technology and has the potential to go far beyond what each can achieve separately.
Improving integrated vehicle safety goes hand in hand with the development of autonomous and automated driving. Advancements in safety technology including increasingly powerful electronic control units, sensor technology for monitoring the vehicle environment and the vehicle interior form the basis for increasing levels of semi- and fully automated driving functions. Integrated safety enhances comfort, convenience and driver support with easy-to-use assistance systems and functions like health monitoring of the vehicle occupants. These technologies can help assist in critical driving situations and in protecting occupants.
Autonomous Driving
Autonomous driving normally refers to self-driving vehicles or transport systems that move without the intervention of a human driver.
Advanced sensor technology, smart control systems and intelligent actuators: For everything from automated to autonomous driving, complex technology is in demand. However, it is not just a question of automated vehicles being able to set themselves in motion. In the future, safety will continue to be the top priority, and passenger comfort will become even more important.
Vehicle Motion Control
The term Vehicle Motion Control refers to all technologies that influence the longitudinal, lateral and vertical dynamics of a vehicle.
These include not only mechanical and mechatronic components such as steering, brakes, dampers and electronic control units, but increasingly software is also playing a major role. This software determines and controls the optimal driving strategy as well as the optimal interaction of all actuators in the vehicle.
Digitalization and Software
Digitalization is all about integrating and interconnecting artificial intelligence into more products and endowing it with the capacity to learn.
Connectivity and digitalization have become an integral part of our everyday lives. The enormous quantities of information available everywhere and in real time make new functions and business models possible that were unthinkable a few decades ago.
Software competence is also becoming a key factor for innovation and an indispensable characteristic of technology leaders. This also applies to mobility and industrial applications: The prerequisite for successful products is the ability to network individual components to form comprehensive systems that act and learn independently thanks to artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms.
With this, ZF develops highly automated driver assistance systems as well as smart IoT and connectivity solutions: Digitalization serves the Group as an enabler for shaping the mobility of the future.
