Research and Innovation Challenges of Connected and Automated Driving

Description

For several years huge R&I efforts are being invested in developing and demonstrating systems for connected and automated driving (CAD). Significant progress has been made in key technologies for innovative CAD functions and applications (e.g. advanced vehicle control, systems to detect vehicle location and environment, data processing, artificial intelligence, human-machine interaction, etc.). To make the next step towards roll out, large-scale pilots are necessary to test and improve the performance and safety of innovative CAD systems and to study market potentials and risks.

There are still many challenges to overcome before automated driving will be widely available on the market for use in many different environments and conditions. More research work is needed in areas such as automated driving in mixed conditions and complex environments, data collection and management, security and privacy aspects of sensitive data, communication technologies for higher levels of automation, design of fail-operational systems, safety validation methodologies, etc.

CAD systems will not become available only by integrating more and better technologies. In order to identify promising use cases that have social and economic benefits, we have to better understand how users perceive and value future use of CAD for specific purposes. For making decisions on investments related to CAD systems, it is necessary to assess the short, medium and long term impacts, benefits and costs of the deployment of CAD vehicles.

This plenary session will bring together the academic research community and automated driving industry to outline the research challenges of future transport systems, where connected and automated driving can bring its added value to different use cases, for urban environments or for long-haul transport. The focus of this session will be to discuss R&I priorities for the next 10 to 20 years and key policy actions to support R&I towards deployment of connected and highly automated driving systems in Europe.