Friday 18 November 2011
Day 5 – Final test session: “all on the air”
For the final half-day of testing a special test session was organised: instead of sending radio messages through cables in a face to face configuration the participants were asked to send their messages over the air and at the same time. A good test to visualise the behaviour of the ITS implementations when several devices are emitting.
Thursday 17 November 2011
Day 4 – Open workshop on cooperative mobility services interoperability testing
The co-organisors of the Plugtests – ERTICO ETSI and the host TNO – on Thursday invited the ITS community to attend a workshop about the first ITS Plugtests. The aim of this workshop was to explain the importance of organising Interoperability events for Cooperative Systems to present some early results of the Plugtests and to discuss the next steps in view of the deployment of Cooperative Systems.
A round table discussion chaired by Maxime Flament (ERTICO) was organised to discuss the needs of the ITS community for the future in terms of interoperability testing as well as conformance and performance testing.
Above: Maxime Flament (ERTICO) with Phil Pettitt (innovITS) Amira Horozovic (Honda R&D Europe) Igor Passchier (TNO) and Gérard Segarra (Renault).
After the theory on Plugtests the workshop participants were invited to visit the testing room to discover in a more practical way how Plugtests look like. It was also an opportunity for them to discuss with the Plugtests participants.
At the end of the day the Workshop and Plugtests particiants gathered again at the cocktail sponsored by ETSI.
CTAG demonstration
After the last test sessions of the day CTAG – the Galician Automotive Technology Center – held a demonstration of the accident use case based on cooperative units which was developed in the context of the SISCOGA project.
Wednesday 16 November 2011
Day 3 – Afternoon: tests and demonstrations go on
In the afternoon new test sessions were conducted by the participants. Below Siemens Peek and Nordsys setting-up a test.
Presentation of the Dutch Integrated Testsite Cooperative Mobility
TNO the host of the Plugtests on behalf of the Dutch Integrated Testsite Cooperative Mobility presented their Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge that took place on May 2011 where 11 different research teams from all over the world were challenged to try together their cooperative driving systems.
The Plugtests participants could also try the DITCM cooperative driving simulator presented by Peek Traffic. 
The Interop event is hosted in the control room of the A270 test facility the test site between Helmond and Eindhoven that is fully covered with communication and camera tracking. A demonstration was organised for the Plugtests participants who got a closer glance at the functions of the test facility such as real-time vehicle tracking roadside-vehicle communication and shockwave damping. 
Finally the “Vehicle Hardware-in-the-Loop” or VeHIL lab was quickly shown. This unique facility allows to evaluate the functionality of a complete vehicle as well as its subsystems and sensors in controlled yet realistic circumstances. To this extent the 200m large hall is equipped with moving robots that have very high (de)acceleration capabilities. These robots are used to represent other traffic participants in order to emulate (dangerous) traffic scenarios. 
Day 3 – Morning: successfull trials of the ETSI conformance test
ETSI developed a conformance test for ITS implementation. The platform (see scheme below) has been set-up at the Plugtests facility to proceed with trials.
The following pictures show Honda executing the Conformance Test.
Tuesday 15 November 2011
Day 2 – Afternoon: DRIVE C2X and eCoMove pass the interoperability test
During a test session on Tuesday afternoon eCoMove and DRIVE C2X implementations have proven to be successfully interoperable. Another important step for the two large European projects and their partners.
Day 2 – Afternoon: radio interference free test sessions
Several test sessions have specific requirements in terms of radio signal transmission. For example one test scenario simulates a vehicle entering a radio covered area. To perform this test it is therefore necessary to change over time the strength of the radio signal carrying the communication. This can only be performed if the two devices under test are isolated from each other.
In the Plugtests this is possible thanks to two radio test benches composed of several faraday cages which provide the appropriate conditions for radio interference free test sessions.
Day 2 – Morning: NEC and Hitachi test interoperability!
NEC and Hitachi conducted this morning a test session with Cooperative ITS devices. For the two active DRIVE C2X consortium members it was an essential milestone before the soon to come DRIVE C2X functions testing.
Monday 14 November 2011
Day 1 – Afternoon: Launch of the Test Sessions
Two test sessions were planned for the first afternoon. The aim of a test session is to conduct interoperability testing of two cooperative ITS devices which can play the role of either emitter receiver or forwarder. Each test session follows a sequence of pragmatic scenarios corresponding to real use cases such as “car breakdown warning”. During the test all devices are monitored to ensure that they behave in the appropriate way. Several test sessions have been scheduled alongside the Plugtests week in order for the different vendors to test their equipment against each other.
Below Peek/TNO and Cohda during a test session.
After the test session a wrap-up session was organised with all the participants. The Plugtests coordinator discussed with the participants in an open dialogue the main achievements of the first day as well as the minor difficulties met.
Day 1 – Morning: Room set-up
It was under a bright sun that all Plugtests participants arrived during the morning at the High-Tech Automotive Campus in Helmond – NL to take part in the first Plugtests ever organised in the field of Intelligent Transport Systems.
The 52 participants coming from 15 different companies and research institutes worldwide started installing their equipment in order to be prepared for the first testing sessions planned for the Monday afternoon.
The opening speech was given by the organising team: Sebastian Müller (right) from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Technical Coordinator of the Plugtests Sander Maas (center) from TNO host of the Plugtests in the name of the Dutch Integrated Testsite Cooperative Mobility (DITCM) and François Fischer (left) from ERTICO co-organisor of the Plugtests.
The first testing sessions were planned for the afternoon.
List of participants
Cohda Wireless CTAG DENSO Automotive Deutschland GmbH Hitachi HONDA R&D ITRI NEC Corporation NORDSYS NXP Semiconductors Peek Traffic BV Qatar University QSTP-B Q-Free ASA Siemens TNO Vector Informatik VTT.
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/1st-interop-event-follow-it-live/
Original Publication Date: Mon 29 Aug 2011
