On Saturday, October 1, as part of a working visit to Naberezhnye Chelny, Head of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov visited KAMAZ. In the presence of the head of Tatarstan, the Scientific and Technical Center of the company hosted the opening of a test site for new vehicles and the signing of a trilateral partnership agreement between KAMAZ PTC, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tatarstan and Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University.
Among the guests are also Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Albert Karimov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan – Minister of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tatarstan Oleg Korobchenko, Rector of Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University Lenar Safin and other managers. At KAMAZ, the delegation members were accompanied by the company's General Director Sergey Kogogin, the company's Deputy General Director for Human Resources, Organizational Development and Corporate Governance Zhanna Khaliullina, the company's Deputy General Director – Development Director Irek Gumerov.
The research site is organized on the territory adjacent to the Scientific and Technical Center of KAMAZ, and is designed to test all newly developed KAMAZ vehicles for handling and stability, for brake tests, reliability tests, external noise tests, and electronic systems tuning control, ADAS systems, robotic vehicles. The length of the site is 770 m. The total area is 16 hectares. The cost of the project is 1 billion rubles.
“Our company conducts a large amount of developments, and everything we need to test trucks, before the implementation of this project, was not in Naberezhnye Chelny, but in the city of Dmitrov near Moscow. This is a very big waste of time. With the construction of this test site, we moved 80% of the certification testing of trucks to Naberezhnye Chelny. Here the main factor is time and convenience for our employees. Now test drivers will live at home, stay in Naberezhnye Chelny, and not be on business trips. The speed of the work will be reduced by the volume of transport logistics – this is two days to Moscow and two days back,” commented Sergey Kogogin, Director General of KAMAZ PTC.
The implementation of the project began in the summer of 2021. During the year, more than ten structures were organized at the new site. The main road is a lane for acceleration of motor vehicles, which is a road 770 m long, 16 m wide with four lanes. Also, a dynamic platform with a diameter of 120 m with artificial irrigation was organized for testing the controllability of vehicles, a road with variable irregularities 4 m wide for measuring vehicles and a road with a cobblestone surface of even paving 4 m wide for assessing the vibration load of vehicles and life tests. A special route with a cobblestone road and a track with interchangeable irregularities, a complex of ascents of various steepness and other objects are provided for mode measuring.
To test ADAS systems, a 12 m wide asphalt concrete road with three lanes was created, a tunnel with artificial lighting to set up auto lights. A 235×106 m site was also built – an imitation of a city with dummy buildings, intersections and traffic lights, which allows you to analyze how a robotic vehicle behaves in real conditions.
At this research site, KAMAZ will be able to conduct 80% of the tests. The company's traditional sites for various special testing will also operate in Moscow and Astrakhan Oblasts, in the Crimea, in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. Part of the tests requiring high acceleration will continue to be carried out at the NAMI test site in the city of Dmitrov near Moscow.
Also at the training ground, Rustam Minnikhanov was presented with the Shuttle project – an on-demand public transportation service. The project is based on adaptive transport that meets the passenger’s various requirements. The bus can change the route on the go, depending on the emerging new orders, pick up passengers “along the way”, choose any point in the service area as a stop. Rustam Minnikhanov positively assessed the new service. He stressed that everything that works for the benefit of our citizens and is in demand by them must be tried and put into use.
In addition, new models of the company were presented to the head of the Republic of Tatarstan – an extra large capacity electric bus KAMAZ-6292, an all-wheel drive bus KAMAZ-6250, a dump truck KAMAZ-6559 "Jupiter 30", as well as KAMAZ-6561 "Hercules", the driving performance of which Rustam Minnikhanov personally assessed having got behind the wheel.
Also, at the site of the KAMAZ STC, in the presence of Rustam Minnikhanov, a tripartite partnership agreement was signed on creating a new type of engineering training, carrying out breakthrough developments and research aimed at solving problems corresponding to the world level of relevance and significance in the priority areas of technological development of the Russian Federation. The document was signed by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan – Minister of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tatarstan Oleg Korobchenko, Rector of Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University Lenar Safin and Director General of KAMAZ PTC Sergey Kogogin.