Over 100 stakeholders met in Versailles on the public kick off day of the new European project, AUTOPILOT on 6 February 2017.

The audience of the public event represented a variety of Mobility Actors, including public authorities, industry, service providers, users and research institutes.

The aim of the AUTOPILOT project is to enable safer highly automated driving thanks to smart and connected objects and Internet of Things.

Financed by the European program Horizon 2020, the IoT-enabled automated vehicles will be deployed at six pilot tests sites in France, Finland, Korea, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. The pilot sites will generate data to evaluate the technical performance of the Internet of Things to allow safer highly automated driving as well as to assess the socio-economic impacts.

AUTOPILOT is a three-year project starting in January 2017, receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the grant agreement No 731993.

AUTOPILOT will develop new services on top of IoT to involve autonomous driving vehicles, like autonomous car sharing, automated parking, or enhanced digital dynamic maps to allow fully autonomous driving. AUTOPILOT IoT enabled autonomous driving cars will be tested, in real conditions, at four permanent large scale pilot sites in Finland, France, Netherlands and Italy, whose test results will allow multi-criteria evaluations (Technical, user, business, legal) of the IoT impact on pushing the level of autonomous driving.

This public event on the AUTOPILOT European Project precedes the Project’s official kick-off. It was hosted by the French Pilot Site in Versailles, allowing the Project’s Partners and attendees to discover this site in depth as well as give the possibility for local stakeholders to learn about the AUTOPILOT project’s objectives.

“Versailles is associated with culture and we hope with Autopilot to also have our city associated with innovation” said Thomas Bonhoure, Head of urban and economic development, Versailles Grand Parc.

The 43 partners of the AUTOPILOT project’s consortium represent information and communication technology stakeholders as well as automobile industry and research. In the regions selected, they will test automated vehicles using smart objects under real-life conditions in order to evaluate the benefit on technology, the economy and people.

We are excited to start such a large scale activity with representatives from all major stakeholder groups to prove that automation in urban environments can become a reality, thanks to Internet of Things. We are looking forward to working together with the four other IoT large scale pilots (LSPs) financed by the European Union, being part of the same IOT project call.

Francois Fischer is AUTOPILOT Coordinator and Senior Manager at ERTICO-ITS Europe.

The AUTOPILOT consortium consists of the following partners: ERTICO – ITS Europe (Coordinator), AKKA Informatique et Systèmes, AVR SpA, COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES, ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS, CETECOM GmbH, Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT), CONTINENTAL AUTOMOTIVE FRANCE SAS, CENTRO RICERCHE FIAT SCPA, FUNDACION PARA LA PROMOCION DE LA INNOVACION, INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO TECNOLOGICO EN LA INDUSTRIA DE AUTOMOCION DE GALICIA, DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUER LUFT - UND RAUMFAHRT EV, Easy Global Market SAS, ETRI, FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE L'AUTOMOBILE, Gemalto Sro, Gemeente Helmond, Huawei Technologies Dusseldorf GmbH, IBM IRELAND LIMITED, IBM Research GmbH, IDIADA AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY SA, ISMB ISTITUTO SUPERIORE MARIO BOELLA SULLE TECNOLOGIE DELL'INFORMAZIONE E DELLE TELECOMUNICAZIONI, NEC EUROPE LTD, NEVS National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB, NXP SEMICONDUCTORS NETHERLANDS BV, PEUGEOT CITROEN AUTOMOBILES S.A., Sensinov, STIFTELSEN SINTEF, STMICROELECTRONICS S.A., Technolution BV, Thales Italia spa, Telecom Italia SpA, NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR TOEGEPAST NATUURWETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK TNO,T-Systems International GmbH, TOMTOM INTERNATIONAL BV, TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN, UNION INTERNATIONALE DES TRANSPORTS PUBLICS
UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS, Valeo Comfort and Driving Assistance, VEDECOM FONDATION PARTENARIAL MOV'EOTEC, Communauté d'agglomération de Versailles Grand Parc, FUNDACIÓN CENTRO DE TECNOLOGÍAS DE INTERACCIÓN VISUAL Y COMUNICACIONES Vicomtech, AYUNTAMIENTO DE VIGO, Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy.