Principal investigators: Prof. Klaus Bogenberger (TUM), Prof. Georg Carle (TUM), Prof. Jörg Ott (TUM), Prof. Jérôme Härri (IMT); Other contact person: Dr. Daniel Kliche (IABG), Dr. Philip Trautmann (IABG)

Short summary and central question:

The project aims to devise and conceptually define a comprehensive extension of the above test field facilities at IABG to: 

● integrate and influence the evolving 6G technologies, including connecting the testfield with Private 5G/6G testbeds currently being established by TUM (c.f. 6G-life) and EURECOM (OAI-based); 

● integrate satellite and non-terrestrial connectivity for both communication and navigation capabilities into the test field and establish means countering attacks on either digital infrastructure;

● research on secure and safe AI to ensure trustworthy operation by extending the capabilities of sensors and their sensed data (e.g., watermarking or fingerprinting), ensuring trustworthy computation (e.g., by means of trusted execution environments), and robust AI models for data processing; and 

● research on the digital representation of vulnerable road users, especially the interaction of automated vehicles with cyclists and pedestrians. 

With this, the 5G/6G-TestTrack project will develop an unprecedented test facility for true co-evolution of both communication & sensing infrastructure and traffic control / automated driving.

 The overarching research question connecting all the above aspects will be: how to achieve resilience within and across digital infrastructures from sensor to network to AI to actuator for future fully digital mobility and traffic control systems.

Overview of the state-of-the-art 

Quite a few 5G testbeds were set up over time (Oulu Univ, Aalto Univ, EURECOM, among others) and open source platforms were developed for building such (most notably the OpenAirInterface (OAI) by EURECOM https://openairinterface.org/). Numerous efforts for 5G network performance measurements were carried out (e.g., https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3366423.3380169 published at The WebConference 2020 or https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3452296.3472923 at SIGCOMM 2021). At the same time, many commercial and academic efforts on aspects of autonomous driving (from sensing technologies to AI for object detection to inter-vehicular communication to trajectory planning to safely functions to teleoperated driving) have been underway. Similar efforts exist on traffic control, V2I interaction, and support for vulnerable road users, quite often focusing on simulations, however. 

The driving testfield and networking testbed being established offer the unprecedented opportunity to carry out joint research and productization in an interdisciplinary setup.

Objectives of the project

 The main objectives of the 5G6G-TestTrack project are: 

  1. defining a comprehensive and detailed concept for an extension of the present driving testfield at IABG and its integration with Private 56/6G testbeds to create a testfield version 2; 
  2.  identifying (possibly pretesting) the necessary target equipment to evolve the present version 1 of the testfield into a version 2 with enhanced sensing and networking capabilities, integrated with a private 5G/6G testbed. 
  3.  Defining a comprehensive research agenda that covers for the testfield version 2:

 ○ Sensing, actuation, and continuous measurements 3

 ○ Networking, satellite integration, and testbed integration ○ Resilient GNSS for assisted and automated driving and traffic control 

○ Safe and secure AI for the complete processing pipeline from the sensor to the actuation

 ○ Traffic control and support for vulnerable road users 

  • Devise a concept for the design and implementation of a validation and certification  service for assisted and automated driving The ultimate goal is creating a project proposal

application to fund the research areas defined above including the equipment necessary to evolve the testfield to version 2.

Expected impact on academia, industry and society 

The testfield to be developed will support furthering the development of assisted and automated driving by co-evolving vehicular, sensing, networking, and traffic control technologies. Digitization of traffic and mobility (of people and goods) will be a key contributor to pressing societal demands: 

● Assisted and automated driving including traffic control will reduce carbon emissions, reduce traffic and traffic jams, reduce accidents, and contribute insights to extending the reach (not just) of electric vehicles through improved traffic flow.

 ● The inclusion of vulnerable road users will help protecting those weakest traffic participants and reduce injuries and casualties. 

● Extending connected mobility to embrace satellite technologies will finally be able to provide the necessary complete coverage of even remote regions and thus enable service beyond the otherwise well connected metropolitan areas, supporting digitally enabled equality of all citizens. 

● Ensuring security and resilience to attacks of the involved technologies, especially concerning GNSS-based operation. 

● Fostering safe and secure – trustworthy – AI operation, which is key to the acceptance of these technologies as AI has a critical role in automated driving. 

● The testing and certification facilities will support know-how build-up in for the involved parties and thus the region and accelerate technologies assessment and trials for France and Germany.