German Aerospace Center (DLR) – INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

With 8000 employees and 16 locations in 33 institutes, the DLR conducts research and development work in the fields of aeronautics, space travel, energy, transportation and safety. At the Institute of Transportation Systems, with locations in Braunschweig and Berlin, with 170 employees, research is undertaken in the fields of automotive, railway systems, intermodality and traffic management.

In the automotive research field, the DLR develops assistance and automation systems for more safety, efficiency and comfort of the road transportation of the future. The researches regarding the automated and cooperative vehicles include, among others, the functional development, human/technology integration and, in particular, the human machine interaction (HMI), driver modeling, system architectures (hardware and software), sensor technology/sensor data fusion, traffic infrastructure as well as tests in laboratories, simulations, simulators, test stands, test fields to the testing in an open space. Therefore, the DLR conducts the necessary research infrastructure (in particular laboratories, simulators, test stands, test fields and infrastructures in public space), which has been designed and conceived according to the requirements of the research and industry projects, as well as further developed.

The DLR Institute of Transportation Systems has already introduced its automotive competencies in numerous national and international research projects, including SPARC, HAVEit, interactIVe, AdaptIVe, eCoMove, PRE-DRIVE C2X and DRIVE C2X, ISi-PADAS, CityMobil, FAMOS, INVENT, IMoST (I+II), D3CoS, HoliDes and UR:BAN. In addition to the automotive expertise, the DLR has a broad knowledge with regard to the automation of transport systems, due to many years of experience, in particular in the application domains of space travel and aeronautics.

In PEGASUS, the DLR assumes a professional and coordinating role: the DLR is responsible for the project coordination and execution, entrusted with project management and project office. The project office supports directly, among others, the project partner, steering committee, advisory council and the coordinators' tandem (Volkswagen – DLR), organizes meetings and events and coordinates the public image and dissemination of results.

With regard to content, DLR is involved in all subprojects, with the focal points being on the first subproject (scenario analysis and quality measures) and on the third one (testing). In the first subproject, the DLR develops human-centered quality criteria and measurements for automated vehicles, together with project partners. This involves a precise understanding of the human performance capability in road traffic. This will take place through the assessment of naturalistic driving studies, which were already conducted, as well as additional studies made with the driving simulators of the DLR. For the determination of the mechanical performance capability, the DLR uses its acknowledged expertise from the research areas of transition design, mode/situation awareness and human/machine cooperation, respectively to maintain the balance between mechanical and human responsibility. The transferability of such investigations regarding the human performance capability in generally valid processes for the testing of automated vehicles is one of the tasks assumed by DLR in the second subproject. In the third subproject (testing), the DLR brings its knowledge regarding laboratory testing and on complete, such as public roads, as well as in particular with the application platform Intelligent Mobility (AIM). AIM will be implemented for the support and assessment of the actually executed test runs, the available traffic and test infrastructure available in Braunschweig being used with communication technology and sensor technology, as well as specifically expanded for the PEGASUS test applications. In addition to the DLR projects, SimWorld and SimWorld Urban, a map-based foundation is being developed for the testing phase, being used in both laboratories and test stands as well as in a model and simulation-based derivation of test specifications. As a neutral research partner, in the 4th subproject, together with the industry, an assessment will be made regarding results, based on practicability and scalability.