Eclipse SAAM Mobility 2021

How ecosystem work accelerates research and development between OEMs and SMEs?

Oulu Automotive Cluster helps automotive brands design and develop sustainable electric and autonomous cars to meet new business models. With 110 companies and 33 research, development and education organizations, the cluster is one of the fastest growing ecosystems in Finland. Oulu Automotive Cluster is run by BusinessOulu, the business development agency of City of Oulu. www.automotive.oulu.com

Our world is changing, and the change is visible everywhere. More than 50% of the population is living in cities and the cities are growing. More and more goods and people need to be transported, bringing the traffic infrastructure to its limits. Increasing pollution and noise levels bringing the environment to its limits.
To counter this, a transformation of the mobility is needed, who has already started, powered by new technologies and services. The mobility of the future will be electrified, connected, personalized, automated and software defined.
Software is more and more dominating our daily life, also in the automotive world. Almost every function in the vehicle is defined by software. Autonomous Driving solutions introduce a new complexity into the development of embedded systems in the vehicle. This complexity rises with each level of control and autonomy of the automated driving systems and you need deeper expertise and more software. Software is more and more becoming an important differentiator for autonomous vehicles. Increasing embedded software complexity with an increase in level of automation is putting new demands on the existing tools and frameworks. Instead of solving these challenges alone, partnering in non-differentiating areas and collaborating is the path forward.

The mobility landscape is undergoing significant changes. More and more mobility providers compete for customers with their own mobility services. Traditional public transport, demand responsive transport, taxis, car sharing, ride pooling, bike sharing, e-scooters, … the available modes of transport in cities are becoming increasingly heterogeneous and confusing. At the same time, significant changes to the landscape are induced by the effects of the global pandemic. They may lead to even more drastic changes in the mobility demand.

How to tame the complexity of this landscape and fight the climate change without neglecting mobility as a fundamental human need is an open - albeit essential - question.

In this talk, we will examine the changes in the mobility landscape and look at the role of two important players in this discussion: open simulators and artificial intelligence. What do they bring to the table in order to tackle the rising complexity? How can they be applied to improve the transportation system in a city? The Eclipse SUMO project is used as an example to illustrate how to build digital twins of smart cities. Moreover, results from recent research projects are used to discuss the effectiveness and efficiency of applying artificial intelligence to optimize transportation systems.