Special Research Area: Digital Twin Road - Physical-Informational Mapping of the "Road of the Future" System

  Graphic: Truck on a highway Copyright: © ISAC
 
 

SFB - Future Road System - Project Website

 

Motivation and Idea

Our mobility in its present form is currently confronted with global challenges. In addition to already established issues, which are gaining in urgency, comparatively new factors are also coming to the fore. The aspects of durability, safety, efficiency and costs as well as ecology play key roles. All these challenges require fundamental solutions, especially with regard to road traffic. Already today, road transport infrastructure is reaching its limits; heavy and still increasing loads, lack of durability, and resource and energy efficiency in need of improvement are major contributors.

This is where ISAC comes in with its Collaborative Research Center: The core objective of the SFB/TRR 339 is to map the "road of the future" by means of a Digital Twin. The Digital Twin Road creates the basis for analysis and control (Pavement Management) of the future road system. This will enable intelligent, careful and sustainable use of the road infrastructure in the future.

Development Strategy and Goals

Development Strategy

The realization of the overall goal will take place in the course of three phases:

  • Phase I: Conception and development of the required partial concepts.
  • Phase II: Combination of the partial models through common, standardized interfaces and integration into a holistic model of the road system (digital shadow)
  • Phase III: Further development of the system road model through its own control components (digital twin), which allows the analysis and control of the system road

Goals

The currently already high level of development of the vehicle is to be achieved analogously for the road system, so that a new quality of integration of vehicles and infrastructure can be achieved. The overriding aspects of law and sustainability are explicitly included in the conception and development of the Digital Twin Road. The Digital Twin Road allows the exploration of the fundamentals for the analysis and control of the future system road through the networked consideration of the design levels and will lead to an intelligent, careful and sustainable use of the road infrastructure.

In addition, other innovative results can be expected, such as groundbreaking condition predictions and the optimal synthesis of building materials and structures or durable road infrastructure components. It will also enable the development of interfaces for local traffic control and interfaces for automated driving. The same applies to the reduction of emissions on the basis of traffic control, for example by minimizing congestion scenarios.

 

Subprojects at ISAC

The ISAC participates with various research projects and projects on material characterization and development, sensor technology and data management:

 

Subproject Sensitive Road Surface

Graphic: City view with buildings and vehicles Copyright: © ISAC

Temporally and Spatially High-Resolution Detection of Wheel Loads

  • Development of a sensitive road surface layer, which generates information for the detection of load positions and the estimation of load and condition variables (EXPERIMENT AND SIMULATION)
 
 

Subproject Functionalization of Roadside Sensors

Graphic: City view with buildings and vehicles Copyright: © ISAC

for the generation of complex traffic-related load data:

  • Development of a methodology for data collection of traffic-related load distributions acting on the road (microscopic traffic data collection)
 
 

Integrated Graduate School

Graphic: City view with buildings and vehicles Copyright: © ISAC
  • Support of the scientific and general qualification of doctoral and postdoctoral students through a multifaceted qualification program that is professionally aligned with the SFB/TRR 339