Siemens and TNO reinforce collaborative innovation agenda on safe automated driving

The financial and technological dynamics of the Automated Driving (AD) industry require a periodic review of the innovation agenda. Over the past decades, Siemens and TNO, have grown to become thought leaders in this industry.

By providing a wide range of software tools and services to the automotive industry, including underlying methodologies and breakthrough concepts, both companies have significantly contributed to driving safety. Over time the focus has shifted from passive to active safety. For the years to come the focus will be on enabling safe vehicle automation.

Safety validation is key

Siemens and TNO are fully aligned on the fact that safety validation is the key to successfully deploy vehicle automation. Vehicle manufacturers need to prove that automated vehicles can repeatedly deal with challenging driving scenarios. The combination of data science and model-based system engineering (MBSE) can provide the solution. Qualified software tools based on robust methodology are necessary to perform the interpretation of large amounts of data and virtual validation with ever improving simulation models.

This becomes even more important, due to the fact that automated vehicles are becoming increasingly dependent on digital infrastructures. Siemens and TNO address this added complexity in the Dutch subsidy program DITM (Digital Infrastructure for Future-Proof Mobility). Here the main objective is to design a methodology that supports validation teams throughout the complete DevOps lifecycle.

Open innovation

Furthermore, Siemens and TNO believe in open innovation. Constructing solid proof for automated vehicle safety cannot be covered by a single organisation. We need federated and interoperable data and software frameworks. This challenge will be addressed together with other research and industry partners in the EU Horizon project Sunrise, aimed at providing guidelines for interoperable scenario databases.

Explainable AI

A third topic of collaboration is artificial intelligence (AI). While ADAS and AV systems rely heavily on AI, the validation and safety argumentation remains an unsolved issue. As part of the reinforced collaboration, TNO and Siemens join forces on the topic of Explainable AI in the context of EU Horizon project Aithena, developing a framework for trustworthy AI to allow the design, system integration and efficient assessment of AI-based components.