The DRIVE C2X and →PRESERVE projects have reached a milestone in their cooperation: The DRIVE C2X platform for Car-2-X communication was integrated with the PRESERVE security solution. The successful testing in a laboratory environment has proven the interworking of the two systems.

In the first set of tests, HITACHI Europe communication stack specifically implemented for DRIVE C2X and SCORE@F was fully integrated with Vehicular Communication security system (VSS) developed by PRESERVE project. Secure V2X communication (VSS Kit 1) in a form of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based Hardware Security Module (HSM) was integrated with GeoNetworking (GN) protocol stack developed by HITACHI Europe. As a result, the DRIVE C2X RIS reference system is now successfully integrated with the PRESERVE security module.  After integration and validation tests, the successful collaboration between the research teams led to a joint demonstration at the 19th ITS World Congress 2012 in Vienna, October 22 – 26 and during the IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference 2012 in Seoul, Korea, November 14-16.  The next milestone in their cooperation is to validate the setup during FOT phase of SCORE@F (March/April, 2013).

An integration and validation meeting between DRIVE C2X and PRESERVE was then organized by NEC Labs in Heidelberg on 15-16 January 2013. The researchers from →NEC Labs and →University Twente ran successful tests for secure communication over ITS-G5 radio using digital signatures and certificates. The tests were carried out with NEC’s embedded hardware platform and PRESERVE’s HSM. As a result, the DRIVE C2X VIS reference system is now successfully integrated with the PRESERVE security module.

PRESERVE is a research project funded by the European Union under the →7th Framework Programme. The mission of PRESERVE is to design, implement, and test a secure and scalable V2X Security Subsystem for realistic deployment scenarios, complementary to the mission of DRIVE C2X. DRIVE C2X and PRESERVE have cooperated since both projects started in January 2011 and exchanged information to harmonize architectures and interfaces. To the same end the partners in the projects also collaborated on standardization efforts in →ETSI and →C2C-CC.