The region of Karlsruhe is a renowned location of research and industry in the area of mobility. The alliance “Profilregion Mobilitätssysteme Karlsruhe” (Karlsruhe priority region for mobility systems) now pools the competences of the research partners in the region for the development of efficient, smart, and integrated mobility solutions. Cities and their surroundings as an attractive area of life and work are to be brought into accordance with increasing traffic of people and goods. The project is funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg with EUR 8 million.
“Smart design of a sustainable mobility system is a pressing issue of society. To advance innovations in this area, we have to network science, industry, and society,” Theresia Bauer, Baden-Württemberg Minister of Science, Research, and the Arts, says. “Impulses, such as this alliance make universities and their research partners drivers and labs of excellent research and decisively support the sustainable development and innovative potential of the state.”
“We would like tomorrow’s mobility solutions to be made in Baden-Württemberg,” Peter Hofelich, State Secretary of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Finance and Economics, emphasizes. “With its solutions, the Karlsruhe Priority Region for Mobility Systems stands at the beginning of the chain of values added. It can lay the foundation.”
“Mobility is a major topic in modern societies,” Professor Holger Hanselka, President of KIT, points out. “Within the framework of this alliance, we and our partners will essentially contribute to this global challenge and bridge the gap between findings and application.”
“Mobility in Germany and Baden-Württemberg needs new impulses from research to contribute to creating values added,” Professor Thomas Hirth, Vice President for Innovation and International Affairs of KIT, adds. “This alliance strengthens the partnership of universities, research institutions, industry, small, medium-sized, and large enterprises.”
“Scientists of the Fraunhofer Society will contribute their vast expertise gained in mobility research. We will work for Karlsruhe being confirmed as a location of excellent research and education and of industrial know-how relating to mobility,” Professor Alexander Kurz, Member of the Executive Board of the Fraunhofer Society, says with respect to networking. “The alliance strengthens our existing cooperation and creates a complementary value added, not least to better master future changes in mobility.”
To solve current challenges of society, such as increasing urbanization, advancing demographic developments, and a generation-fair sustainability, mobility plays a central role. Future mobility will have to meet high requirements and, at the same time, be flexible, safe, and environmentally compatible.
To elaborate viable solutions for ground-based mobility in a changing society, actors in technical, socio-technical, and societal research fields have joined the alliance. The city and its surroundings as an attractive area of life and work are to be brought into accordance with the constantly growing traffic of people and goods through efficient, smart, and integrated mobility systems. Karlsruhe as a location of research is to be strengthened. The alliance is to pool existing competencies relating to the development of viable mobility solutions in Karlsruhe and to establish partner structures needed for strengthening Baden-Württemberg as a location of mobility in the long term.
To start the alliance, the partners have initiated seven joint projects: One project is to analyze changed mobility and traffic requirements due to aging population or urbanization and develop corresponding mobility concepts and technical solutions. Another two projects will cover new challenges for the urban infrastructure and urban traffic flows as well as networked mobility, by means of which vehicles will be enabled in the future to communicate with each other, e.g. via new ICT platforms. In addition, increasingly automated and autonomous mobility is subject of a project, in which a self-driving car with the pertinent IT services will be set up and operated. Other studies will concentrate on electric and hybrid electric drives as well as on conventional combustion engines and in particular on increasing their efficiency and minimizing carbon dioxide emissions. A last project will concentrate on integrated lightweight construction using smart material combinations, with an electric compressor for combustion engines being used as an example.
Through this alliance, Karlsruhe as a center of mobility research will become widely visible and the innovative power of the region will be enhanced. The total budget of the alliance is about EUR 8 million. EUR 2.1 million each are financed by the State Ministries for Science, Research, and the Arts and for Finance and Economics in the pilot phase of two years. The spokesman of the alliance is Professor Frank Gauterin of KIT. Founding partners of the alliance “Karlsruhe Priority Region for Mobility Systems” are Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Karlsruhe-based Fraunhofer Institutes for Chemical Technology (ICT), of Optronics, System Technologies, and Image Exploitation (IOSB), for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI), and for Mechanics of Materials (IWM), as well as Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, and the FZI Research Center for Information Technology. The network is planned to integrate additional enterprises for producing synergies and transferring knowledge among the partners by joint research projects.
More about the KIT Mobility Systems Center http://www.kit.edu/research/6720.php
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.