Finnish Research Hopes to Advance Driverless Tech Through 6G

An autonomous driving project in Finland is hoping to explore the advantages to the technology of 6G connectivity.

It’s run by the Finnish Meteorological Institute in partnership with the University of Oulu which claims its 6G research is already well advanced. Its Empirical Software Engineering in Software, Systems and Services (M3S) research group claims to be one of Europe's largest research units in the software sector, specializing in, for example, car software. It says the project will focus is especially on software, because an autonomous car is a comprehensive software platform, with strict requirements on functionality, reliability and security.

Researchers are hoping to enhance autonomous driving technology using traffic-related data outside the scope of a vehicle’s own sensors. Extended traffic situation information refers to information that is obtained from elsewhere and combined with the information produced by the car's own sensors. This refined information is used to assist the driver, remotely control public transport and finally enable fully autonomous driving.

Leader of the project, Adjunct Professor Kari Liukkunen from the M3S research unit, said: “In the research, our aim is to find out how to combine the various sources of expanded traffic situation information and the most efficient data transfer methods as well as information processing to enable autonomous driving. Software, communication, and computing solutions are critical issues. We also want to find out how the solutions and software architecture can be tested in both virtual and real traffic situations.”

— Paul Myles is a seasoned automotive journalist based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @Paulmyles_  and Threads