Project 1.4 – Digital Twin

Prototyping, verification and validation of AVs

Digital twining and simulation is a critical tool to demonstrate behavioural and functional safety as a part of the Safety of the Intended Functionality (SOTIF) approach, which aligns with Safe Systems, but is less holistic. Effective simulation must be informed by real-world data of encountered events (e.g. national crash data and  naturalistic driving studies).

This project will uniquely extend the encountered events with tests and validation on unforeseen “events” in rural and remote regions where:

a) drivable areas of roads,

b) road hazards and obstacles, and

c) other road users’ behaviours manifest themselves very differently (compared to urban), presenting uniques challenges for developing the safety case. It explores collected data from non-urban roads to develop a bespoke digital environment for it, which can then be used to understand the uncertainty in road and drivable space estimation, and the impact this would have on the safety and regulation of new technology in these environments. The collected data also enables the verification of existing algorithms through simulation.