Over the past two years, the BI has been involved in the project “5G Lab Germany – Forschungsfeld Lausitz” (Research field Lusatia region). The project explored how to design automated and teleoperated driving concepts in which the steering of the vehicles no longer takes place exclusively in the vehicle itself, but is assisted by the infrastructure using 5G communication technologies.

In order to fully benefit from the potential of teleoperated and connected driving, the required data processing must be secure and in compliance with data protection laws. The goal is to detect and prevent manipulation.

Our research group ”Secure and Privacy-Respecting Data Processing," led by Dr. Stefan Köpsell, worked on secure ways of message transmission, encryption and data processing .

Ensuring the trustworthiness of the vehicle control system involves not only securing communications using cryptographic algorithms and associated security protocols, but also securing data processing in the edge cloud and safeguarding the sensors.

To secure the communication, protocols have been developed that extend the existing ETSI-ITS-Standards to use cryptographic methods to secure the message transmission.

Due to the large number of sensors and data transmission processes involved, data protection played a decisive role in addition to security. Therefore, it was analyzed where data protection problems could arise. The research group also developed and evaluated anonymization concepts and obfuscation strategies.

The Barkhausen Institut’s Connected Robotics Lab designed an interactive exhibit in which connected driving and the safety technologies developed in the project can be demonstrated and examined on a small scale.

Overall, this made an important contribution to improving the trustworthiness of teleoperated or connected driving.

The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure based on a resolution of the German Bundestag.