ROADVIEW: how cross-border research on automated vehicles shapes safer, greener technologies

On a test track in southern Germany, engineers watch as an automated vehicle drives through simulated heavy rain. As the vehicle pushes through sheets of water and poor visibility, researchers are recreating one of the toughest sensing challenges for automated driving.

“Bad weather is one of the situations the car will face, and the car must deal with that,” said Professor Werner Huber from the Technical University of Ingolstadt in Germany, home to world-leading testing facilities for autonomous vehicles in both real and virtual environments.

Rain, fog and snow distort the sensor signals that automated vehicles rely on. That undermines safety for both future driverless cars and today’s vehicles, which increasingly depend on automated features such as emergency braking and speed control.

Collaboration across borders

Huber’s team is part of an EU-funded project called ROADVIEW. The four-year initiative brings together researchers across Europe, including the United Kingdom, which rejoined the EU’s Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation on 1 January 2024. The project is working to ensure that vehicles can operate safely in the real world, even under adverse weather conditions.

Among the partners is Professor Valentina Donzella from Queen Mary University of London, who provides specialist expertise in sensor technology.

Donzella studies how sensors collect data, analysing and modelling how data degrades due to environmental conditions and noise, and how algorithms interpret it. Her work improves the reliability of vehicle perception systems, making automation safer and more trustworthy. 

“The problems we are facing are so difficult that even industry cannot face them alone. We really need this kind of collaboration and complementary expertise coming together,” said Professor Valentina Donzella, Queen Mary University of London.

With partners in Sweden, Finland, France, Türkiye and Switzerland, ROADVIEW researchers aim to improve future automated vehicles, and also strengthen current car safety standards.

They hope their findings will help expand the testing of new cars to include adverse weather – potentially reducing accidents and saving lives.

“Horizon Europe is enabling us to tackle the problem in a rigorous way, where we put safety in first place,” Huber said, referring to the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.

“If we improve sensor technology and perception, we improve driver assistance systems, and we improve safety systems. That’s where the real impact for society is,” he added.

MORE INFORMATION

CORDIS project factsheet: ROADVIEW

ROADVIEW project website

This is an abridged version of an article by Ali Jones originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine.