Father of ESP honoured with European Inventor Award; Amminex awarded for NOx reduction from diesel engines

Anton van Zanten was honoured for his invention of the Electronic Stability Program (ESP) with the 2016 European Inventor Award in Lisbon on June 9. The award, which is conferred by the European Patent Office (EPO), was presented to the 75-year-old in the “Lifetime achievement” category.

The Dutch native developed the anti-skid system as the head of a 35-member research group at Bosch, during a career that spanned more than 25 years. The system was first featured as standard equipment in the Mercedes-Benz S600 in 1995.

Commenting on Zanten’s work, Dr Volkmar Denner, chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH said, “Anton van Zanten and his engineering colleagues are the guardian angels of many drivers. The invention of ESP stands for our ‘Invented for life’ ethos like few others.”

In Europe alone, ESP has saved more than 8,500 lives and prevented more than a quarter of a million traffic accidents to date. That makes anti-skid protection the most important vehicle safety system after the seat belt – more important even than the airbag.

Danish research team awarded for reducing air pollution from diesel engines

Denmark-based start-up Amminex including company founders Tue Johannessen, Ulrich Quaade, Claus Hviid Christensen and Jens Kehlet Nørskov also won this year's European Inventors Award in the category Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). 

The Danish research team received the award for the ground-breaking application of ammonia in solid form to reduce air pollution from diesel engines and act as an emissions-free fuel. Released into the exhaust system of diesel engines, it can reduce the amount of harmful emitted NOx (mono-nitrogen oxides; a key component of smog) by up to 99%. Theirs is a true start-up success story powered by patented inventions.

In his acceptance speech, Tue Johannessen stressed that this was “a big team effort” and thanked the team, the investors and everyone involved. He said “it is really important to keep CO2 levels low”. His colleague Ulrich Quaade thanked “our co-inventors, who are not present today”. 

ESP standard equipment in growing number of countries

Using smart sensors, ESP compares 25 times per second whether the car is actually moving in the direction that the driver is steering it in. If the measured values do not match, the anti-skid system intervenes, initially reducing engine torque. If that is not sufficient, it additionally brakes individual wheels, generating the counterforce needed to keep a vehicle safely on course. If all vehicles were equipped with the anti-skid system, up to 80 percent of all skidding accidents could be prevented.

Since November 1, 2014, ESP has been mandatory within the European Union for all newly registered cars and light commercial vehicles weighing up to 3.5 metric tonnes. In addition to the EU, the anti-skid system is also mandatory in Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Turkey, and the United States. Worldwide, 64 percent of all new vehicles are therefore already equipped with ESP. Bosch has manufactured more than 150 million ESP systems to date.

ESP can save 10,000 lives on Indian roads

In August last year, Bosch had claimed that the installation of ESP can help avoid around 70 percent of all skidding accidents involving passenger cars on highways in India.

“With 16 people dying every hour in road accidents, India is the single largest contributor to road deaths across the world. Last year, the country accounted for nearly three percent more fatalities than 2013 of which around a third of the victims were in the age bracket of 15-25 years. Such a high rate of causality occurring due to road accidents draws attention to the need for advanced safety and driver assistance systems in India,” said Klaus Maeder, executive vice-president, Chassis Systems Control, Robert Bosch GmbH.”

“Few Indian OEMS already offer such features and customer’s preference for such models has been encouraging and is a sign for the need of more safety features,” Maeder explained.

van Zanten’s innovation-laden career

By inventing the electronic stability program, Anton van Zanten and his development team at Bosch did more than just lay the foundation for greater road safety. The system is also the basis for today’s driver assistance systems and automated driving. Increasing automation presents an opportunity to lower accident rates even further – by up to a third in Germany alone. ESP is Anton van Zanten’s greatest success but by far not his only achievement.

During his career as an automotive engineer, he was responsible for some 180 patent families. Along with ESP, his inventions include electronic rollover mitigation and trailer sway mitigation. Anton van Zanten entered into active retirement in 2003. To this day, he continues to lecture on vehicle systems at universities and act as a consultant for automotive companies. For his contributions to automotive safety, Anton van Zanten has already received numerous awards. However, the European Inventor Award, which pays tribute to his life’s work, is of particular significance.

Eleventh edition of the European Inventor Award in five categories

The European Inventor Award has been presented since 2006. It is the EPO’s way of honouring researchers, scientists, technicians, and inventors whose inventions have been patented by the EPO and have made an outstanding contribution to scientific, technical, and social progress allowing any member of the public to nominate an inventor for the award. From the nearly 400 nominees from a total of 13 countries in 2016, an independent, international jury selected the 15 finalists. The jury also decides the winners in the five categories “Industry,” “Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),” “Research,” “Non-European countries,” and “Lifetime achievement.” The winners of the European Inventor Award receive a trophy shaped like a sail as a symbol of discovery and human ingenuity. The trophy is crafted with new materials every year.