Eurofiber to facilitate European connected car project

‘TRUCK PLATOONING’ PILOT PRESENTED AT EUROPEAN ROUND TABLE ON CONNECTED AND AUTOMATED DRIVING

Summary

Maarssen – Eurofiber is today taking part in the European Round Table on Connected and Automated Driving at the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona. Chaired by Andrus Ansip, Vice President of the European Commission, the Round Table marks a further milestone on the road towards self-driving cars.

The European Automotive Telecom Alliance (EATA), with Eurofiber in the steering committee, has presented its ambitions and plans for rolling out a European network that will enable self-driving cars to take to the road safely. The so-called CONCORDA project is part of these plans, and also includes the pilot for ‘Truck Platooning’ in the Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Region (MRDH), in which Eurofiber plays a proactive role. During the Round Table, the EATA will also sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA). By doing so, the EATA and 5GAA stress the importance of global cooperation between the ICT and automotive industries in the field of intelligent vehicle and road transport systems.“The launch of the CONCORDA project and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with the 5G Automotive Association demonstrate the strong commitment to international cooperation on developing concrete solutions for self-driving cars. As a strong advocate of this, Eurofiber plays an active role in the EATA. Our open fiber-optic network, which extends across the Benelux, provides an important basis for the deployment of self-driving cars. It is often forgotten that autonomous driving is not only about smart vehicles, but also about a high-quality, cross-border digital infrastructure,” says Bart Oskam, CTO of the Eurofiber Group.

Accelerated adoption of Truck Platooning technology

The Truck Platooning trial in the MRDH, in which Eurofiber participates, is one of the pilot cases within the CONCORDA project that EATA recently presented to the European Commission. CONCORDA brings together several leading telecom and automotive companies from five countries in the European Union. Eurofiber’s role in the Truck Platooning pilot project is to research the communications infrastructure that is needed to enable automated driving by trucks in convoy (platooning), communicating using intelligent logistics and transport systems. The aim is to improve traffic safety and traffic flows, lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, and boost driver productivity. Eurofiber envisions the pilot project, which will start in late 2017, as a means of accelerating the adoption of technologies for Truck Platooning. The pilot will initially focus on Truck Platooning in the Rotterdam port area, with the next step being to expand deployment in the MRDH and beyond. The first commercial applications could become reality by 2020. In the longer term, the goal is to have unmanned, fully self-driving trucks on the road. Eurofiber is joined in the pilot project by TNO, Smart Port, Thales, CGI and ARS, among others.

Close international cooperation

Close international cooperation is crucially important to the development and deployment of solutions for ‘connected and automated driving’. This involves combinations of technologies from various sectors, which are deployed in complex ecosystems with different chain partners and which must also operate across borders. Audi, BMW Group, Daimler, Ericsson, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and Vodafone are some of the companies represented in the 5GAA. The signing of the MoU by EATA and 5GAA is an important step towards realising internationally deployable and commercially feasible solutions for ‘connected and automated driving’.