Objectives of the service
The pressure on car dealerships and car dealership chains is increasing. Margins are shrinking and more and more cars must be sold to achieve the same turnover. Progressive digitalisation can help here. For example, modern, high-precision satellite navigation (Galileo) in combination with indoor localisation (Bluetooth) can help to save a large part of the daily search time for cars and keys. At the same time, 24/7 monitoring enables processes to be analysed and improved. Further savings result from an early-warning system for long standing cars, battery problems and imminent standing damages. This not only saves money, but also protects the environment. Also, communication with customers is also becoming more and more digital. Here, Car-lileo is the missing link between the internet and the real world. In the medium to long term, Car lileo will also be used in the mobility sector.
Users and their needs
On the one hand, users are all employees who come into contact with vehicles on a daily basis in the car dealership, the workshop or as a car detailer. They want to find cars and keys quickly and reliably - regardless of whether they are parked inside or outside. From them, it is very important that the system is very easy to use. On the other hand, department heads and managing directors want an objective overview of their inventory. Specifically, movement data on the vehicles, the "state of health", and the identification of bottlenecks in the process.
Service/ system concept
A Car-lileo Plug (diagnostic connection OBD-II) attached to each vehicle automatically recognises the car regardless of the manufacturer and monitors the position (GPS/Galileo + Bluetooth) as well as the “health status” of each vehicle 24/7. Customer cars/keys are located via Car-lileo Mirror Tags or Car-lileo Key Finders. Additional sensors enable the detection of long-standing cars, and imminent standing damages and allow the optimisation of “standing times 1, 2 and 3”. All data is sent wirelessly to the German, DSGVO-compliant cloud without interfering with your existing IT. Car-lileo is operated via the browser and integrates seamlessly into your existing workflow. Planning, installation, and training are possible within 1 week.
Space Added Value
Galileo localization is a core element of Car-lileo. For the provided services, a high precision positioning technology is needed, because there are many limiting factors, which must be handled: many cars are densely packed, sometimes shielding metal elements from the architecture and the position of the Car-lileo Plug – often deep in the legroom of a car. For seamless indoor/outdoor localization and interaction with people, we use additional technology (Bluetooth, sensor fusion).
Furthermore, Galileo is a trustful European technology, much more reliable than e. g. GPS.
Apart from Satellite Navigation, Satellite Earth Observation is used in Car-lileo: The map material of the outdoor maps (OSM) of Car-lileo is mainly derived from satellite pictures. The OSMs are extremely important for the users to guide them to the car or car key, they are looking for.
Current Status
In an ESA kick-start project, a rough concept, an initial business plan and an MVP demo suitcase have already been developed. In the demonstrator phase, the idea will be further developed, a hard- and software prototype designed and Car-lileo tested in a real-world demonstrator with several customers with a large number of vehicles.
