Discussing automated driving technologies

110 experts joined the AdaptIVe Technical Workshop “Developing Automted Driving” in Athens on April 21st and 22nd, 2016.

The latest developments in sensor technologies and advanced sensor fusion, automated driving applications and human factors have been presented and discussed. State-of-the-artmethodologies and tools for the evaluation and validation of automated driving systems were presented.

The workshop was concluded by presentations of the developments and challenges for driving automation from legal and liability point of view.

In two days experts exchanged ideas and knowledge within the agendas main topics: SLAM algorithms, V2X communications, driving experiments, layered control architectures, human factors studies, heavy vehicles, large scale user-tests, future of insurance policies, philosophical and legal issues, current status of the regulatory technical work and legal barriers.

The presentations can be downloaded here.

Full agenda is available here.

Speakers’ biographies are available here.

The workshop in detail //

Keynote speeches

Aria Etemad, Volkswagen Group Research and coordinator of AdaptIVe presented an overview of automation technologies for vehicles giving the view of both the industry and the industry R&D.

Angelos Amditis, ICCS gave an overview of the core technology that constitutes an automation system today like sensors and sensor fusion, perception and driver control, as well as validation. 

Session 1: Automation technologies I

A state-of-the-art in SLAM algorithm used for autonomous navigation in robotics and how this can be deployed in automotive field was presented by Anastasia Bolovinou, ICCS.

Markus Hahn, Daimler AG continued with a graph-SLAM approach for offline mapping and online localization as well as its evaluation for outdoor and indoor automated parking.

The AutoNet2030 project focuses on V2X communications. It was noted by the presenter Laurens Hobert, Hitachi Europe, that connectivity is is considered as an option to complement existing sensor fusion approaches.

A set of innovative solutions for different object detection and scene recognition applications, based on Laser based vision for ADAS and Autonomous Driving, was presented by Filip Geuens, XenomatiX.

The technical challenges on building a self-driving vehicle and participating on a supervised long driving experiment were presented by Tinosch Ganjineh, Autonomos GmbH.

Moving from perception to action, layered control architectures for automated driving like humans, was the focus of the presentation of Mauro Da Lio, University of Trento.

Session 2: Automation technologies II

Tom Westendorp from the TomTom Group presented an innovative concept where map updating is performed by exploiting information from automatic processing of accumulated recorded data such as users’ speed profiles and the users’ community feedback using sensor data and machine learning techniques.

A thorough overview on how the automation changes the role of the driver and other road participants was given by Anna Schieben, German Aerospace Center – DLR. The need of human factors studies that include all traffic participants such as pedestrian and car drivers was highlighted.

The concept of V2X security, potential threats from its deployment and possible solutions and challenges are presented by Onn Haran, Autotalks Ltd..

Improving Vehicle Safety with Predictive Diagnostics. The approach presented by Udo Pletat, IBM is based on online data collection from the vehicle to achieve continuous vehicle condition monitoring.

With his presentation, Marc-Michael Meinecke, Volkswagen Group Research, put the focus onautomated driving functionalities in heavy vehicles and on long journeys.

Session 3: Evaluation and verification

The ongoing work on evaluation methodology developed for the AdaptIVe project was presented by Christian Rösener, Institut für Kraftfahrzeuge, RWTH Aachen University.

The work in safety validation of automated driving functions and certification activities as this was addressed in several recent European and national projects was the focused by  Álvaro Arrúe, IDIADA Automotive Technology, S.A.

Sami Koskinen, VTT, shared evaluation experiences from The Field Operational Tests (FOTs) of automated driving discussing tools for data management.

A broad view on the state of the art in the field of ADAS evaluation was given by Felix Fahrenkrog, Institut für Kraftfahrzeuge, RWTH Aachen University. It was argued that while research activities on automated driving have started, yet many research areas require new methods and solutions especially for valuation.

Session 4: Legal and liability aspects

The future landscape of insurance policies was explored by the presentation of Panos Kouvalis, INTERAMERICAN (ACHMEA Group). Changes in liability when vehicles get fully automated were forecasted and different liability issues were discussed. Jochen Feldle, University of Würzburg, added Philosophical and general legal discussions in the context of autonomous driving.

Yves Page, Renault and Maxime Flament, ERTICO-ITS Europe updated the audience on the current legal aspects and regulatory technical work in Europe and beyond. Mentioning trilateral cooperation on specific topics such as impact assessment, digital infrastructure, human factors, roadworthiness testing and accessible transport.