The future will rely on widespread, massively-connected, highly-intelligent systems. To implement this vision, we need dependable cloud-based cyber-physical systems. Research in this direction encounters as many opportunities as challenges. Such systems exist in changing environments and interact with other systems and humans, which requires intelligence, autonomy, safety and adaptability – in fact, conflicting goals. An example of this is autonomous driving.

Today, autonomous vehicles function reasonably well in test situations since the conditions are severely restricted and thus easy to manage. A key issue however is how to design autonomous vehicles so that they operate dependably even in complex and previously unknown situations. A solution from Fraunhofer IKS is helping to uncover and predict such difficult situations.