Driving Innovation Ahead: SALIENT Project Completes Second Secondment
Mr Alberto Pisonero (Cidaut) tuning a device to monitor the behaviour of the vehicle during the real-world ADAS testing trials
The collaboration between the SALIENT project and industry partners across Europe and beyond is a key factor in ensuring the project’s success. The lessons gained from working closely with the industry will enable the partners to develop an effective exploitation strategy for the project’s Key Exploitable Results.
Following the first secondment by Mr Mohab Elmarakbi, a Senior Researcher at the University of Northumbria completed his secondment at the National Institute for Material Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan; two employees from Cidaut, Mr Javier Romo and Mr Alberto Pisonero spent one week, from 15 to 19 July 2023 at Interactive Fully Electric Vehicles (I-FEVS) in La Loggia, Turin, Italy. I-FEVS is a small-to-medium Enterprise (SME) focused on generating innovative solutions to manufacture best-in-class urban mobility vehicles, particularly in terms of safety, security, operation and total cost of ownership. During their secondment, they worked closely with Dr Pietro Perlo, co-founder and president of I-FEVS.
The main working topic was discussing how the design of small urban vehicles can be inherently safe and how these vehicles can benefit from the latest developments in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to enhance the safety of both occupants and other road users. For example, implementing features like the Autonomous Emergency Braking can help reduce the speed at which a potential collision would occur. Several topics were covered during the week, including:
Structural safety of small vehicles, addressing issues such as design principles to improve crash compatibility. Small vehicles are often at a disadvantage in collisions with larger vehicles, tending to suffer more severe damages.
Electric/Electronic architectures to support the implementation of cost-effective ADAS solutions that can trigger automated driving actions (e.g. steering, braking) or issue warning signals based on the input from vehicle sensors and cameras. Mr Alberto Pisonero from Cidaut and Mr Sergio Pozzato from I-FEVS shared best practices and insights on how to implement and set up these systems in a real vehicle from I-FEVS.
Demonstration of ADAS solutions in a real-world environment in La Loggia (Italy)
Finally, the visit concluded with a real-world demonstration of the different solutions discussed during the week, such as driving an I-FEVS van through La Loggia.
As part of the SALIENT project mission to enhance safety with novel concepts in the automotive sector, Mr Romo participated in the driving demo, experiencing firsthand how the ADAS solutions central to SALIENT’s goals perform in a real-world scenario.
Author: Jorge Velasco Manrique, Cidaut