Project News: Large scale field operational test on in-vehicle systems underway

Date: 26 June 2008

The project, in which ERTICO plays an active role, will identify and coordinate an in-the-field testing of new Intelligent Vehicle Systems. The purpose is to validate the effectiveness of selected ICT-based systems and functions for safer, greener and more efficient transport in a real-life environment.

Many state-of-the-art in-vehicle systems are currently waiting to be deployed on the market. However, in order to create a proper business case and comply with political decisions, there is currently a real need to understand several key questions that are crucial for market penetration: the way drivers use intelligent systems, what their short and long term effects are, and how system performance could be further improved. Field Operational tests such as euroFOT are addressing this issue, adding a new link in the research and development phases and making the link between research and markets.

euroFOT is one of the two first pan-European Field Operational Tests supported by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme of Information Society Technologies. Led by Ford, the project involves 28 partners, including major European vehicle manufacturers as well as leading automotive technology suppliers and research institutes, which will work together over a period of 40 months.

In total, eight functions will be tested on a large scale in a real environment. Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Speed Limiter (SL) will be the longitudinal control functions tested.  Blind Spot Information System (BLIS), Lane Departure Warning and Impairment Warning (LDW & IW) will be the lateral control functions tested. More advanced applications, such as Curve Speed Warning (CSW), Fuel Efficiency Advisor (FEA) and Safe Human Machine Interaction (SafeHMI) will also be tested. euroFOT is expected to offer early publicity about the systems. More than 1500 equipped vehicles with data loggers will be driving over a period of approximately one year in various European countries. This time span will allow the statistically-sound collection and processing of data.

For more information about euroFOT, please contact Ariane Brusselmans at a.brusselmans@mail.ertico.com or Maxime Flament at m.flament@mail.ertico.com.