03 Mar VIRTUAL VEHICLE takes lead in TestEPS project
Representatives of VIRTUAL VEHICLE and project partners went to Hungary earlier this week to present the project TestEPS, which stands for “Testing and verification methods for environmental perception systems”. The focus of this exploration project, lead by VIRTUAL VEHICLE, is to clarify all technical and non-technical challenges relevant for virtual and real transnational testing and verification of environmental perception systems. The planned follow-up R&D project shall then develop and demonstrate appropriate technical solutions for the challenges identified in TestEPS in a transnational test area.
Especially the secondary road network, including multi-national road markings, border crossings with high traffic density and varying road surface types, poses a challenging environment for in-vehicle sensors. To address this challenge, specific expertise from Austria and Hungary shall be combined with a novel cross-border testing environment including stationary sensors (e.g. camera, radar for static ground truth) to create transnational verification methods and technologies for perception systems. Outstanding expertise and best-in-class proving grounds from both countries shall be made available in a single testing area to strengthen and promote central Europe’s position in testing and development of autonomous vehicles. This effort shall eventually lead to a certification procedure for vehicle perception systems. The novel testing and verification process shall include cross-border compatible virtual simulations with HD maps and sensor models, as well as dedicated proving grounds for automated vehicles, which will ultimately be merged into a transnational test area.
Partners in this project are IESTA, Joanneum Research and AVL. The support of the project by two different test regions underlines the cross-border nature of the project. While the test region Alp.Lab is participating in the project on the Austrian side, the test region ZalaZone supports on the Hungarian side. As lead of testEPS and partner of the project fleetQuAD, VIRTUAL VEHICLE visited the ZalaZONE Research and Technology Center for the Hungarian kick-off event of the Austrian-Hungarian joint call for CAM Cooperation. Several Hungarian media outlets visited the event as well, their reports are available through the links below.