Autonomous driving

Significant progress in the fields of artificial intelligence harbors the promise of autonomous mobility systems becoming fully operational. Autonomous systems can bring about a disruptive transformation in transportation systems and infrastructures. A successful transformation of this kind will require a holistic approach, encompassing strategic and operational perspectives as well as vehicle technology. The impact on user acceptance must also be assessed.

The development, modeling, simulation and analysis of autonomous fleets, particularly in the context of mobility as a service, will be carried out from a system-based perspective, in which various mobility services such as public transportation, car sharing and taxi services are interconnected.

The focus of this subject area will cover such aspects as

• the interplay between automated vehicle fleets and conventional public transportation / motorized individual traffic,
• the analysis of economic viability of automated traffic,
• a game theory assessment of customer and provider reactions,
• a regulatory, ethical and social assessment of autonomous systems and
• a multi-criteria assessment of the effects and implementation paths.

On the basis of the system analysis, operational control mechanisms and algorithms will be developed to operate the systems under consideration.

Applying the “design thinking” innovation process, this area will look at the reallocation of roles between humans and vehicles and design innovative human-machine interfaces. This includes the communication of automated vehicles with other traffic participants.