Autonomous driving on the historical route of Bertha Benz

When Bertha Benz started her trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888 it was the first time that a car was used for a long distance journey. 125 years later, the Mercedes S-class S 500 Intelligent Drive repeated this historical journey - autonomously, without any intervention by the driver, and in normal traffic. The historical route is 103 km long and exhibits a large variety of situations which are representative for today's traffic. The route passes through the city centers of Mannheim, Heidelberg and through 23 villages and small towns. On this route, the vehicle had to cope with roundabouts, crossroads with and without traffic lights, zebra crossings, narrow street sections, and sometimes it also had to overtake cyclists. In contrast to other projects of autonomous driving, the vehicle was only equipped with close-to-production sensors. Cameras, radar units and an accurate digital map enabled the vehicle to perceive and interpret its environment, even in complex situations. This paper provides a survey of the technical solutions which enabled the vehicle to drive autonomously including the camera based environment perception, the digital maps, the self-localization algorithm, and the behavior planning approach for complex traffic situations.