ANDATA News

CAE and AI with commodo and the FEM Operations Toolbox at NAFEMS

For more than 15 years now, ANDATA has been working on the combined application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods in Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) under the title commodo (complex modelling and simulation operations, see failure prediction). Long a niche topic for experts and innovators, it is now on the threshold of entering the mainstream.

With the FEM Operations Toolbox, ANDATA is now providing an enabler for the direct application of AI and machine learning methods on and in finite element simulations, in particular crash simulation.

We present field reports and application examples at the NAFEMS conference on October 24th, 2023 in Munich.

We are firmly convinced that the combination of CAE with AI, among other things, is a major milestone in the development of future vehicle safety systems on the way to VisionZero. And this applies both to

  • improved and realistic simulation in product development as well as
  • in primary simulation-based system validation and product approval.

For more information, come to the NAFEMS event on October 24th or contact us directly.

Robotaxis producing traffic chaos in San Francisco

According to recent news like CNN: ‘Complete meltdown’: Driverless cars in San Francisco stall causing a traffic jam, Robotaxis from Cruise and Waymo are producing great chaos in the streets of San Francisco.

Unfortunately, our mathematically thorough predictions from several years ago seem to become true.

🚦 These traffic problems of autonomous vehicles have already been identified and named at an early stage within the WienZWA project (see Will autonomous cars solve our traffic problems?, Balancing the benefits of automated driving, and Test Fields and Advanced Accompanying Methods as Necessity for the Validation of Automated Driving).

💡 The reasons are obvious and clearly described. Of course there may still be hard technical challenges at the level of sensors and control algorithms. The geeks from Cruise and Waymo will solve them sooner or later by clever, neat, and systematic engineering. But there are still profound conceptional burdens at the level of traffic and the interactive behaviors of the according systems and divers traffic participants. Such cannot be solved by looking at the vehicle's technology only. Their resolution requires a broader community approach and contribution of other stakeholders too.

Fortunately, concrete solution strategies are known and already in the making respectively available with higher degrees of maturity:

👉 Infrastructure Support for Automated Driving (ISAD) to

  • deliver actual information from original sources for valid driving decisions,
  • expand vehicle’s ODDs with external help,
  • provide dynamic risk rated maps for congestion/accident prevention,

👉 Virtual Traffic Control to

  • coordinate automated vehicles in a self-organized manner,
  • enable active cooperation,

👉 Automated, self-organized, distributed Traffic Management & Control to

  • sort out incidents and congestions quickly,
  • select the best strategies upon the given/predicted situations,

👉 Digital Twins of the traffic infrastructure for

  • multilateral and trustworthy exchange of shared information between infrastructure and traffic participants,
  • consolidation of shared information from different sources with different levels of trust,

👉 Distinct and holistic CCAM System-of-Systems Architectures to

  • bundle the above items in a controlled and orchestrated way,
  • reduce the overall complexity in traffic.

More details on how to sustainably overcome the encountered challenges and how to realize the benefits of automated driving nevertheless, can be found under the umbrella of VERONET.

Also watch out here for more upcoming initiatives soon (>FUNDAMENTO, DESIRE2, DETECTION, NORBERT, ODD, ...).

FISITA World Congress 2023

Before leaving for summer break, we want to make a short announcement:

The FISITA World Congress 2023 will take place in Barcelona beginning on September 12th.

ANDATA will immediately open the first technical session on "Integrated safety, connected & automated driving" with a presentation on "Criticality estimation for connected, cooperative collision avoidance".

Ex ante some key issues:

👉 Within the project DIGEST we began to define fundaments for Digital Twins of the traffic infrastructure, containing information for improved driving decision in Cooperated, connected, Automated Driving, which we call the "CCAM Decision Support Platform".

👉 Cornerstone for information exchange and cooperation is the definition of a common language to express observations, intentions, capabilities, and ODDs.

👉 The project COPE (Collective Perception) showed how such information may look in a generic way to avoid collisions between any kind of traffic participants, especially for vulnerable road user protection.

👉 Within the project IntIntSec we will incorporate such into a holistic Digital Twin of an intelligent intersection, finding the best compromise between vehicle efficiency (saving energy), traffic efficiency (avoiding congestions), and safety (staying collision free).

We deliver the control algorithms and the underlying technological framework.

Eager to see you in Barcelona, paving the safe way to Vision Zero.

Publication of the Project Results from DIGEST - Digital Twin of the Road Traffic System

For 2 years the consortium of Logistikum from the Univerity of Applied Science Upper Austria, ANDATA, DLR, hitec, ARNDT IDC respectively consu developed a Digital Twin fo the Road Traffic System for ASFINAG, BASt and ASTRA.

Now the project results have been published as peer-reviewed IEEE journal paper:

Hereby a significant contribution for the safe and trustful exchange of information in

  • cooperative, connected, automated driving (CCAD),
  • traffic management,
  • asset management and predictive maintenance

in form of a CCAM Decision Support Plattform.

One of the main applications will be Infrastructure Support for Automated Driving (ISAD) with ODD awareness.

Conference Announcements Spring 2023

ANDATA will participate in the following conferences in spring 2023 and offer a presentation.

From 25.4. to 26.4.2023 the automotive CAE Grand Challenge of carhs will take place again this year. ANDATA provides a contribution to the topic

ODD Coverage in Development and Validation
of Automated, Connected Driving Functions

The main aim is to clarify the terminology and how these can be used to ensure the most effective development and validation of automated driving functions in scenario management.

From 13.6. to 15.6.2023 the ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle Expo will take place in Stuttgart. In the accompanying conference, ANDATA will give a presentation on the topic

Infrastructure Support for Automated Driving
with ODD-awareness by Digital Twins

The main focus is on the results and consequences of the two projects COPE - Collective Perception and DIGEST.

 

Further details can be requested from info@andata.at.