Managed Automated Driving (MAD) - a Concept for Empowering Road Infrastructure

Abstract

Current automated vehicles, even when appended with C-ITS support, require a vast number of sensors of various types per vehicle to empower them to cope with the variety of possible situations. However, most of these sensors are not required on large parts of the route while in addition, the horizon of vehiclebased sensors is very limited. On the other hand, roadside infrastructure can be placed fully matching specific local requirements and therefore ensuring optimal sensor performance, while communication can provide basically unlimited sensor ranges. Replacing vehicle-based sensors by infrastructuremounted ones can therefore be a solution. Using this approach on dedicated routes (e.g. for public or freight transport) with fleet vehicles can be a starting point to make automated driving safer and economically beneficial. The German national project "MAD Urban" is investigating means of additional roadside support, including localization, object detection, and even vehicle control by infrastructure.