At the ZF Electronics Engineering Centre in Czestochowa, a team of 870 engineers is working on solutions that, although often invisible to the average road user, are changing the way we understand safety, mobility and autonomy in vehicles. One of the centre’s areas of activity is ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and automated driving, which are becoming the cornerstone of modern transport.
The centre in Czestochowa, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, has been strongly rooted in research and development from the very beginning. In 2005, as part of TRW, it started with a team of just 45 engineers, focusing on passive safety systems such as airbags. Today, as an integral part of the ZF Group, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, the team has grown almost 20-fold, and its expertise covers the full spectrum of electronic systems, from concept to production. The components manufactured here are supplied to car manufacturers around the world, and technologies for autonomous vehicles have become the leading direction of development.
Rafał Zatorski, director of the ZF Electronics Engineering Centre in Poland, points to a number of challenges facing the industry today: “In addition to technological challenges, the automotive market is affected by economic and market factors: rising costs, declining production volumes, and uncertainty caused by the geopolitical situation and protectionist practices. Rare earth metals, which are essential in the production of certain automotive components, are becoming increasingly scarce. All of this has a significant impact on the markets.” These factors form the backdrop for a technological transformation that also includes decarbonisation, particularly in the context of the European ban on the sale of new combustion engine vehicles after 2035.
Although ZF does not manufacture batteries, it has invested in complete electric drive systems: from motors and inverters to control systems and software. However, the greatest field of innovation remains ADAS systems and automated driving functions. ‘ADAS systems use perception via radars, cameras, lidars and ultrasonic sensors, and the data from these sensors is analysed by very fast computers. We then create the hardware, program it, write advanced algorithms and test them both in laboratories and in the field,’ says Zatorski.
ZF’s flagship project in the field of automated driving is the super-fast ProAI computer. It is a central processing unit based on the NVIDIA Orin processor, capable of processing 256 trillion operations per second. It is one of the most powerful computing solutions used in the automotive industry. Thanks to its scalable architecture, it is possible to combine several such units, which allows for higher levels of autonomy – from L2, through L3, to full L5. ‘This solution has already been delivered to one of our customers. We are in the process of finalising the project for two large premium manufacturers,’ adds the ZF director.
The development of ADAS also includes work on a new generation of S-Cam 4.8 cameras, equipped with Mobileye’s EyeQ4 processor. They enable the implementation of features such as automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control and lane assist. High-resolution imaging radars, designed for L2+ and L4 autonomy levels, provide even better mapping of the environment and more accurate analysis of road conditions.
The cooperation between the Czestochowa centre and the ZF production plant in the same city enables not only the design but also the immediate production of electronic components. This is a rarity on a European scale – the full integration of the R&D and production cycle in one place significantly accelerates the implementation of new technologies.
Steer-by-wire technology, in which the steering wheel is not physically connected to the wheels – steering is done exclusively via electronic signals – also occupies a special place among the projects. “We designed it from scratch in Czestochowa. It has already found its way to two customers – one in China and one in Europe. This is the moment when visions from decades ago become reality,” emphasises Zatorski. In his opinion, this is a significant step towards true autonomy, where the steering wheel can be optional or even serve an entertainment function, e.g. as a joystick during autonomous driving.
Despite rapid progress, ZF experts emphasise that the road to full autonomy (level L5) is still long. ‘From a technical point of view, it is possible to build a single autonomous vehicle. But an autonomous world is one in which these vehicles interact with each other and with the infrastructure. This will require many more years of work and huge investments,’ says the centre’s director.
However, the activities carried out in Częstochowa are not isolated – they are part of ZF’s global strategy, in which teams from Poland cooperate on a daily basis with research units in Germany, the USA, France, China, India and the United Kingdom. Knowledge exchange, joint testing, architectural compatibility – all this creates an extremely complex engineering ecosystem in which Polish technical thought plays an increasingly strategic role.
