The Volkswagen Group's Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL)

In a series of very interesting articles lately, Fourtitude is giving you an in-depth view about the work of the Volkswagen Group's Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL, situated in the Silicon Valley.

The Volkswagen Group's Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) is helping to accelerate the development of the "intelligent" car of the future. Potential technologies are analysed, rapidly brought to production maturity and the customer thus enabled to benefit from them even more swiftly.

The ERL in Palo Alto, California (USA), is the main electronics research centre of the Volkswagen Group. Located at the heart of Silicon Valley, it enables the group to collaborate directly with many of the world's leading high-tech companies, budding hardware and software companies, and university research institutes. The close partnership between the ERL and these partners promotes the design and development of innovative equipment and applications, which are then installed in test vehicles of the group brands for further analysis and trials.

The research area with a time horizon of 5-10 years plays an important role especially in a branch of industry in which the life-cycle of a product can be up to a decade. This is because key features and specifications are defined several years before market launch. It is evident from a glance at the timescale that for a concept earmarked for launch in 2010, it may be necessary to present and approve many of the details by as early as 2005. Within this process, the ERL engineers assume the task of integrating future cutting-edge technologies into functioning equipment specifications in order to demonstrate their features in vehicles. This is the only way that product planners have the opportunity to consider new technologies in terms of customer benefit and incorporate these ideas into future draft vehicle designs.

Source: Fourtitude

Labels: Volkswagen