KRONE RECEIVES EUROPEAN RESEARCH CONTRACT
As part of the GAIA-X research project, the German Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWi) has given the commercial vehicle manufacturer Krone the task of developing a concept that optimises the flow of goods and commodities through the intelligent use of data. The major European project GAIA-X has set itself the goal of uniting business, research and administration in the European economic area in a data infrastructure that is as powerful as it is secure, in order to offer European companies an independent alternative to the market-leading cloud providers from overseas and to provide the necessary capacities for the data traffic of major projects such as autonomous driving.
One of the ten thematic areas of GAIA-X is dedicated to the mobility sector, which is facing profound changes due to climate change and resource shortage. To make freight transport more efficient and environmentally friendly through smart order control, reliable arrival time forecasts and intelligent capacity management, logistics fleet operators are involved in the design of an innovation vehicle so that the next generation of heavy-duty vehicles can be directly aligned with the needs of the sector. GAIA-X terminology provides for these future products to be called iWT (intelligent swap body/intelligent trailer). At the forefront of the project calendar is the conduct of interviews with market participants. The insights gained from these serve as the basis for all further GAIA-X developments.
Krone Managing Director Ralf Faust sees enormous potential for the transport and logistics sector in the GAIA-X project: “Telematics technologies are already being used today to record and provide, for example, the positions, the messages from the braking system or the temperatures in the load compartment of the swap body or trailer. GAIA-X will help to ensure that future telematics services go far beyond already known functions such as ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) predictions, route management, door control or coupling status to further increase quality and efficiency for transport and fleet management.”
The Federal Ministry of Economics and Krone are contributing equally to the 1.6 million euro budget available for this research field. Krone project manager Maximilian Birle expressly welcomes the assignment and emphasises the increasing importance of secure and networked data streams for the transport industry: “For Krone, participation in GAIA-X is of outstanding importance. Our company’s many years of experience in the field of digital commercial vehicle services will contribute greatly to making this project a success.”
Krone is the only German commercial vehicle manufacturer participating in GAIA-X. The GAIA-X research project is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
