"We feel honored and delighted to have been able to give our guests an insight into Karlsruhe mobility research within the framework of the profile region Mobility Systems," says Dr. Miriam Ruf,head of the research group "Analysis of Situations and Automotive" at Fraunhofer IOSB. "With our exhibits and lectures of the represented institutions FZI, IOSB, and the KIT Institute for Measurement and Control Technology (MRT), we were able to present our wide range of topics in order to discuss cooperation possibilities with Japanese research institutions and Japanese industry". The 22 widely travelled guests represented the Hokuriku Economic Federation, an economic association in the north of Japan that focuses on public-industrial-academic cooperation. The visit was organized by the Fraunhofer Representative Office Japan.

Profile region with influence as far as Japan

Host was the interdisciplinary performance center Profile Region Mobility Systems Karlsruhe, an association of the Karlsruhe institutions for research, teaching and innovation in the field of mobility systems, in which the FZI, the local Fraunhofer Institutes ICT, IOSB, ISI and IWM, the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) with 20 of its institutes are involved.

"One of the goals of the profile region from the very beginning was to improve the visibility to the outside world and accessibility for cooperation partners," says Dr. Matthias Pfriem, who was present as a representative of the profile region's cluster management. "We are therefore pleased that even in far-away Japan we are perceived as a center of excellence for research into future-oriented mobility solutions".

Test field Autonomous driving in focus

The program included a guided tour through the "House of Living Labs" of the FZI with focus on the test field of autonomous driving as well as several lectures and a technology demonstration together with the MRT at Fraunhofer IOSB. The speakers explained the services and plans of the test field Autonomous Driving and gave an overview of the subprojects and possibilities of the profile region Mobility Systems Karlsruhe.

Another focus was on the activities of the Automotive Group at Fraunhofer IOSB, which deals with algorithms for fully automated driving, with implementation scenarios for cooperative driving functions, and with concepts for testing and securing automated driving.

Inter-institute communication via headlights

The demonstration of the MRT's measurement vehicle with its impressive sensor construction on the roof as well as the two VERTEX vehicles (test vehicles for technology experiments) of the Fraunhofer IOSB, which are approved for automated driving in road traffic and serve as a platform for various investigations and technology developments, attracted great interest. As a conclusion and best example of the joint cross-institute work, the VERTEX vehicles communicated on this day with the test vehicle of the MRT via a vehicle-to-vehicle imaging communication developed at the IOSB using headlights, which serves as a second redundant channel to secure radio communication.

After a full program around the topic of automated driving with vivid discussions, the Japanese delegation set off in the late afternoon for the next stop of their one-week trip to Germany.