Hubert Weisser

Volkswagen Group (Germany), Technische Universität Braunschweig

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About

Hubert Weisser is a pioneering researcher in the field of autonomous vehicles and robotic driving systems, whose work in the late 1990s and early 2000s helped lay important groundwork for modern self-driving technology. His most influential contribution centers on the "Autonomous Driving" cooperative project, which demonstrated how ordinary mass-produced cars could be transformed into automatically driven vehicles for use on professional vehicle test tracks — most notably on Volkswagen's proving ground. Weisser's research introduced the concept of an electronic co-pilot system, leveraging laser scanner technology to navigate robotic vehicles without human intervention. His 1998 overview paper, accumulating 27 citations, established the foundational motivation and conceptual framework for the project, while subsequent publications detailed implementation strategies and vehicle diagnostic systems that could substitute for human test driver surveillance — a significant practical advancement for automotive safety testing. His work on driving robots capable of handling extreme courses further demonstrated the versatility and robustness of his autonomous systems. With a combined citation impact across multiple publications, Weisser's contributions represent an early and substantive effort to industrialize autonomous driving technology within real-world automotive testing environments, making him a notable figure in the early history of vehicular automation.