Porsche Challenge: Autonomous Transport of Assembled Sports Cars within Production

Porsche, the Seeker for this Challenge, is looking for novel ideas and concepts for a system to autonomously transport assembled vehicles, including sports cars with low ground clearance, between operating sites within a factory. Solutions must take the operating environment factors into consideration such as surfaces, ramps, path width/curve radii, outdoor usage, etc.

This is an Ideation Challenge with a guaranteed award for at least one submitted solution.

Advanced technologies have entered every phase of production for automotive manufacturers, including raw material delivery, automated assembly, and work-in-process movements between manufacturing cells. Currently, manufacturers have also extended their focus into the post assembly phase in their production line where assembled cars are transported to different testing and finishing sites within the factory. Although there are existing products that can autonomously transport assembled vehicles, they are not suitable for Porsche’s production line due to certain restrictions on vehicles as well as the infrastructure conditions. Thus, Porsche is looking for novel ideas and concepts to autonomously transport assembled vehicles within a production site. The ideal solution can autonomously pick-up, move and put-down assembled cars in different areas, navigate in human workplaces, and integrate with automatic testing stations without manual interaction.

This is an Ideation Challenge, which has the following unique features:

• There is a guaranteed award.  The award(s) will be paid to the best submission(s) as solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout will be $12,500, with at least one award being no smaller than $5,000 and no award being smaller than $1,000.
• The Solvers are not required to transfer exclusive intellectual property rights to the Seeker.  Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solver grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information included in this proposal, including for promotional purposes.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on 22-Sep-2019. Late submissions will not be considered.

After the Challenge deadline, the Seeker will complete the review process and make a decision with regards to the Winning Solution(s). All Solvers that submit a proposal will be notified on the status of their submissions; however, no detailed evaluation of individual submissions will be provided.

ELIGIBILITY

This is an external challenge only. Employees of the Volkswagen Group and its subsidiaries are ineligible to participate or receive awards for this Challenge.

ABOUT THE SEEKER

In the beginning I looked around and could not find quite the car I dreamed of. So I decided to build it myself.

- Ferry Porsche

His dream of the perfect sports car has always driven us – throughout our history – with every concept, every development and every model.

Porsche is a German manufacturer of sports cars headquartered in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen. It was founded in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche. Since then, Porsche has established itself as one of the most profitable automobile manufacturers in the world. In the year 2018, Porsche delivered 256.255 vehicles of the Porsche models 911, Cayenne, Macan, Panamera, 718 Boxster and Cayman models to customers worldwide. In September 2019 Porsche is revealing its first pure electric vehicle, the Taycan.

Porsche is actively pushing forward new solutions and innovations not only in its products but also with its production. Committed goals are improving lean processes, support and protection of workers as well as increasing productivity. In achieving this, new technologies such as flexible automation and digitalization will play an important role. Given the strong focus on new technologies and innovations in the production context, novel AGV concepts (Automatic guided vehicles) are important in driving overall efficiency. Embracing these topics will allow us to shape the exclusive and sporty mobility of tomorrow.