Paving the Ways for Vehicles-in-the-loop: Wireless Integration of Autonomous Vehicles into Mixed Reality Proving Grounds and Test Areas

Proving grounds and test areas equipped with smart infrastructure might provide a solution to bridge the gap between laboratory testbeds and real-life testing by challenging the autonomous vehicle with critical scenarios in a risk-less way. Whereas actual research focuses on the infrastructure-sided support of automated and assisted driving, we focus on the integration of real experimental vehicles with simulated, virtual obstacles and traffic participants on the side of smart infrastructure of proving grounds and test areas. In the present work, we propose an innovative testsystem protocol as the missing link to integrate real physical vehicles with virtual obstacles. We derive general requirements and a universally valid testsystem protocol. Due to the technological developments and distribution of the wireless communication protocol stack IEEE 802.11p / ETSI ITS-G5, we focus the evaluation of its suitability for this. Finally, we highlight further emerging research questions.