In sync: International collaboration enhances automated vehicle safety tests | Virginia Tech News

VTTI is home to one of the world’s largest groups of transportation safety researchers and is well known for advancing the design of vehicles and infrastructure to increase safety and reduce environmental impacts.

AstaZero, which is owned by the RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, is home to the world’s first full-scale independent test environment for the automated transport system of the future. The facility features a range of traffic environments that make it possible to test advanced safety systems and their functions for all types of traffic and  situations, including a 700-meter indoor track, according to its website.

AstaZero’s Timo Kero said after being introduced to VTTI, his team compared the two group’s research assets looking for how they might help each other. One big thing stood out about the institute.

“It was the Smart Road with its rain and fog,” said Kero, AstaZero’s chief technology officer. “That’s what really got our attention because we only have a dry road. So we began to think, ‘How can we complement each other?’”

VTTI leaned into the experience of research scientist Jacobo Antona-Makoshi to cultivate working relationships and identify the best areas for collaboration. During his graduate studies, Antona-Makoshi studied and worked in Gothenburg, Sweden, and he has since built many partnerships with Swedish universities, companies, and research institutions, including AstaZero.

“So this project has some personal value to me as well,” said Antona-Makoshi, who is in VTTI’s Division of Vehicle, Driver, and System Safety. “I’ve always had such good relationships with partners in Sweden, it makes it easy to want to develop future collaborations.”

Kero said Antona-Makoshi’s previous work with AstaZero and visits to its proving ground helped expedite the relationship between the two research groups.

“We didn’t have to explain everything to him because he already knew what kind of animal we are,” Kero said.

Antona-Makoshi worked with AstaZero’s research lead, Victor Jarlow, to identify how to best leverage both groups’ expertise. It soon became clear that an initial way to partner was to focus on safety evaluation for automated vehicles, a priority for both institutes. Jarlow spent three months working with VTTI researchers in Blacksburg to integrate their automated system.

“My time at VTTI was incredibly rewarding,” Jarlow said. “We exchanged ideas and perspectives that I’m excited to carry back to Sweden, and I hope that my time in Blacksburg contributed positively to the work as well. I had the opportunity to spend time at VTTI twice, once in the spring and again in the autumn, and each visit strengthened both our technical work and our collaborative relationship.”