Current driver assistance systems are not all-weather capable. They offer comfort and safety in sound environmental conditions. However, in adverse weather conditions where the accident risks are highest they malfunction or even fail. Now that we are progressing towards automated cars and work machines, the requirements of fully reliable environment perception are only accentuated. The project is focusing on automated driving and its key enabling technology, environment perception. Consequently, project’s main objective is to develop and validate an all-weather sensor suit for traffic services, driver assistance and automated driving. Extended driving environment perception capability with smart, reliable and cost-efficient sensing system is necessary to meet the targets of all future driver assistance system applications. These targets need to be met regardless of location, weather or time of the day. Only by means of reliable and robust sensing system upcoming automated driving will be possible. The new sensor suit is based on a smart integration of three different technologies: (i) Radio radar, 77 GHz-81 GHz, (MIMO Radar); (ii) Gated short wave infrared camera with pulsed laser illumination (SWIR camera)and (iii) Short-wave infrared LIDAR (SWIR Lidar). Such a full fusion approach has never been investigated before, so that the outcome will advance the state-of-the-art significantly and demonstrate the potential of all-weather environment perception. DENSE innovation lies in the provision of a brilliant restored enriched colour image from a degraded infrared image and consequently, this is followed by a variety of application fields for low cost solutions. An important aim is also to close the gap to US developments in the field and avoid their restrictions for selling components overseas for strategic reasons and strengthen the position of European industry in worldwide competition.

NewControl will develop virtualized platforms for vehicular subsystems that are essential to highly automated driving (realizing functions such as perception, cognition and control), so as to enable mobility-as-a-service for next generation highly automated vehicles. Its overarching goal is to provide an industrially calibrated trajectory towards increased user-acceptance of automated control functions, through an approach that is centered on the premise of safety by design. Newcontrol will deliver: 1. Fail-operational platform for robust holistic perception through a combination of Lidar, Radar, and sensor fusion 2. Generalized virtual platform for stable and efficient control of propulsion systems 3. Cost- and power-efficient, high-performance embedded compute-platforms for in-vehicle perception, cognition, and control 4. Robust approaches for implementing, verifying, and certifying automated control for safety-critical applications Several (12) demonstrators will be built to showcase the project’s findings and their capability to facilitate perception, cognition and control of next generation highly automated vehicles. The developments in NewControl will facilitate significant cost reductions for essential modules necessary for future automated vehicles. Concomitantly, these developments will improve the safety and reliability of automated systems to levels necessary for mass-market deployment. These innovations will leverage the expertise of industrial (OEMs, Tier-1, Tier-2 and technology providers) and research partners along the complete semiconductor, automotive, and aviation value chains, providing Europe with a competitive edge in a growing market. Importantly, NewControl's innovations will improve the market penetration of safety-centric automation systems, contributing directly to the European goal of zero road fatalities by 2050.

The ambition of PRYSTINE is to strengthen and to extend traditional core competencies of the European industry, research and universities in smart mobility and in particular the electronic component and systems and cyber-physical systems domains. PRYSTINE's target is to realize Fail-operational Urban Surround perceptION (FUSION) which is based on robust Radar and LiDAR sensor fusion and control functions in order to enable safe automated driving in urban and rural environments. Therefore, PRYSTINE's high-level goals are: 1. Enhanced reliability and performance, reduced cost and power of FUSION components 2. Dependable embedded control by co-integration of signal processing and AI approaches for FUSION 3. Optimized E/E architecture enabling FUSION-based automated vehicles 4. Fail-operational systems for urban and rural environments based on FUSION PRYSTINE will deliver (a) fail-operational sensor-fusion framework on component level, (b) dependable embedded E/E architectures, and (c) safety compliant integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches for object recognition, scene understanding, and decision making within automotive applications. The resulting reference FUSION hardware/software architectures and reliable components for autonomous systems will be validated in in 22 industrial demonstrators, such as: 1. Fail-operational autonomous driving platform 2. An electrical and highly automated commercial truck equipped with new FUSION components (such as LiDAR, Radar, camera systems, safety controllers) for advanced perception 3. Highly connected passenger car anticipating traffic situations 4. Sensor fusion in human-machine interfaces for fail-operational control transition in highly automated vehicles PRYSTINE’s well-balanced, value chain oriented consortium, is composed of 60 project partners from 14 different European and non-European countries, including leading automotive OEMs, semiconductor companies, technology partners, and research institutes.