The project partners are MAN Truck & Bus SE, Deutsche Bahn AG, Götting KG and Fresenius University of Applied Sciences. It is being funded with 5.5 million euros from the "New Vehicle and System Technologies" program of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The project will run for 39 months.

The fully automated truck will be used at the Ulm Dornstadt site. It will move automatically in the DB Intermodal Services container depot and the DUSS terminal. A safety driver from MAN will always be on board for the tests. The digital infrastructure with all the necessary interfaces will first be set up on the site. Experienced crane operators will handle the containers so that operation can be tested under real conditions.

Dr. Sigrid Nikutta, DB Board Member for Freight Transport: "Combined transport is a key to a successful transport turnaround. Customers gain access to rail via the transhipment terminals, so it is important that we offer them efficient and innovative processes here. Containers need to be handled faster and more flexibly. We are using digitalization for this, as in the ANITA project: autonomously driving trucks in the terminal are the first, but important steps towards Terminal 4.0."

MAN Truck & Bus SE is developing the vehicle for the project: "Together with our partners, we will gain valuable experience with autonomous vehicles in container handling on a terminal site. Following our already very successful platooning project with DB Schenker AG and the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences, ANITA represents the next important step on the road to automated driving in the hub-to-hub application - another milestone in our MAN automation roadmap," says Dr. Frederik Zohm, Executive Board Member for Research and Development at MAN Truck & Bus.

Götting KG will develop algorithms for locating and detecting obstacles for the vehicle. CEO Hans-Heinrich Götting: "The ANITA project aims to raise our environmental perception to a new level for full automation. Cooperation with important partners within a real environment is extremely important for Götting KG."

In order to ensure communication between the truck and the terminal or container depot, the behavior of people and machines on the terminal site is first analyzed in order to subsequently transfer it into digital processes and rules. Fresenius University of Applied Sciences is taking care of this: "It is part of our tradition to analyze processes in complex systems," says Prof. Dr. Christian T. Haas, Director of the Institute for Complex Systems Research at Fresenius University of Applied Sciences. "In the current project, the particular challenge is not only to understand the system behavior, but also to transfer it into a digital concept that machines can work with. The top priority here is safety - but performance aspects are also essential for the rollout process."