From 23 to 25 January 2018, members of the AUTOPILOT project met at the Automotive Campus in the Dutch city of Helmond. Throughout the so-called Plugfest, they worked on three essential parts of the AUTOPILOT adventure: sensor set-up, data processing and evaluation.

Seeing and communicating traffic
During the event, demonstrations on all driving modes in the project took place. The Dutch research institute TNO presented its set-up for automated platooning, featuring a car that draws on multiple communication channels (G5, WiFi, GPS and LTE) in order to prevent system failure even at higher speeds.
The German research institute DLR showcased its software solution for automated valet parking, which can be linked to car-sharing businesses as well.
Valeo, bringing their own vehicle from France for the event, demonstrated how the car senses road obstacles on highways. Sensor equipment, for instance, detects potholes or puddles and transmits this information to the IoT cloud.
Lastly, two further Dutch project partners, Technolution and TU Eindhoven, demonstrated their solutions for urban driving. Based on location mapping of surrounding sensors in the IoT environment, such as smartphones, their car will be rerouted in cities to avoid congested streets.

The value of interoperability
Before and even throughout the demonstrations, the technical team of AUTOPILOT continued working on their data processing software. AUTOPILOT strives for open solutions, which can be used across Europe. In order to ensure this interoperability, partners from the five European pilot sites came together to test their software.
In addition, the Plugfest explored the central AUTOPILOT data server. In order to facilitate data sharing across the different driving modes and pilot sites, innovative solutions were tested. According to AUTOPILOT project coordinator Francois Fischer, during the Plugfest in Brainport “AUTOPILOT partners succeeded in providing car sensor and CAM data to the IoT platform and demonstrated IoT benefits with a car platooning demo”.

From data to evaluation
In parallel to the technical work, AUTOPILOT kicked-off its evaluations this week. The project partners met at the fringes of the Plugfest to discuss the technical and socio-economic evaluation of the AUTOPILOT scenarios. In small groups, they discussed research questions, hypotheses and evaluation tools.
From mid-2018 onwards, the pilot sites will implement the solutions seen at the Plugfest. At the same time, the perceptions of users and stakeholders will be surveyed in workshops at the pilot sites.

Click here for more information about Autopilot.