FrostBit Software Lab is part of the Horizon Europe granted ROADVIEW project!

The first snow has already fallen in Northern Finland, and with that come the unsolved challenges of automated driving in harsh weather conditions. Therefore, ROADVIEW project will tackle this challenge by delivering more powerful and reliable in-vehicle perception systems, with improved resilience and accuracy under harsh weather conditions.

The 4-year project started with a kick-off meeting that was held at Halmstad University on 8-9 September 2022. This was the first time when the representatives from all 16 partners got together to present their competencies and discuss any open issues. First ROADVIEW kick-off meeting held – ROADVIEW (roadview-project.eu)

Harsh weather conditions, such as fog, rain and snow, provide a serious challenge for automated vehicles as they are typically trained and tested under good weather with great visibility and road conditions. ROADVIEW aims to tackle these challenges by developing robust and cost-efficient in-vehicle perception and decision-making systems that can perform even under harsh weather conditions and different traffic scenarios.

FrostBit Software lab of Lapland UAS is excited to be leading the development of the environment Digital Twins in the third work package of the project. Together with Synthetic Data Solutions (SDS), the aim is to create digital twins of both controlled and real-world test environments for simulation testing. FrostBit will utilize the knowledge gained in the previous EU funded WinterSim and ongoing EnergyECS projects, where the topic of simulation testing was researched.

At the beginning of November FrostBit developers went on a one-week data collection trip to CARISSMA outdoor test facility in Ingolstadt Germany. The plan was to collect the required reference data used for building the environment digital twin. Main task was to develop a highly accurate 3D point cloud of the area that works as the main reference for the digital twin. In addition, the developers also took lots of reference photo and video material and created datasets for the development of photogrammetry assets of targets used in the test facility.

The FrostBit crew also got the privilege to visit the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt where they were introduced to the campus and its facilities. During the visit FrostBit was able to get a closer look at the facilities and get a better understanding of the research that is been done. Finally, FrostBit developers got to test an autonomous driving simulation platform that demonstrated the various levels of autonomous driving.

The environment digital twins are planned to be completed early next year 2023. After that FrostBit will assist in integrating the digital twins into the simulation engines used in the project. FrostBit will also keep working on improving the digital twins and helping to support the simulation testing. This has been a great start for the project.