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Mercedes-Benz stunned the crowd at the Frankfurt motor show when it unveiled its latest S500 Intelligent Drive -- Daimler AG Chairman Dieter Zetsche entered the stage of the Benz press conference at Frankfurt from the backseat of a driverless S500. Clearly, Mercedes-Benz demonstrates that their vehicles are ready for the next generation of personal transport.

Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive is a complex system that relies on information from a multitude of sensors strategically placed around the car to avoid obstacles as well as a number of cameras, including one tasked with interpreting traffic light patterns. Finally, GPS satellites guide the route the vehicle must take.

According to Mercedes-Benz, autonomous vehicles have been designed many years ago and has taken nearly twenty years to perfect. Early Intelligent Drive prototypes were capable of autobahn driving and performing maneuvers including lane changing, overtaking, and maintaining distances.

"For us, autonomous vehicles are an important step on the way to accident-free driving," says Dieter Zetsche. "They will bring greater comfort and safety for all road users. That's because autonomous vehicles also react when the driver is inattentive or fails to spot something. On top of that, they relieve the driver of tedious or difficult tasks while at the wheel."

"With our successful test drives following in the tracks of Bertha Benz, we have demonstrated that highly automated driving is possible without the luxury of specially closed-off sections of road and relatively straightforward traffic situations," says Professor Thomas Weber, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG with responsibility for Group Research and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars Development. "In line with the goal of the project, we have gained important insights into the direction in which we need to further develop our current systems in order to enable autonomous driving not just on motorways, but also in other traffic scenarios. Even we ourselves were quite surprised at just how far we got using our present-day sensor technology. But now we also know how much time and effort is needed to teach the vehicle how to react correctly in a host of traffic situations – because every part of the route was different," adds Weber. This experience will now be incorporated into the engineering of future vehicle generations to be equipped with such innovative, further-developed functions. The Head of Daimler’s Research and Development stresses: “With the new S-Class, we are the first to drive autonomously during traffic jams. We also want to be the first to bring other autonomous functions in series production vehicles. You can expect that we will reach this goal within this decade.”

It is unclear when the final production version of the Mercedes Benz Intelligent Drive will be ready. However, the technology within the auto industry in general will not reach maturity until 2020 or 2025. Given the reputation of the S-Class as a car full of the latest technology, early adopters will likely see a high functioning autonomous system from Mercedes-Benz first.

Finally, be sure not to miss the video of Dieter Zetsche entering the press conference at Frankfurt. Also, don't miss Mercedes-Benz testing their S500 with electric drive on the streets of Germany.