Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Economy and the Automobility and ICT Clusters, managed by Luxinnovation, held an information session about the LU-DE-FR (Luxembourg-Germany-France) digital cross-border test bed.
On September 14, at the IAA, the leading International Trade Fair for Mobility, Transportation and Logistics held in Frankfurt, Luxembourg signed a cooperation agreement with Germany and France for the development of a common experimental site for connected and automated driving. The site will enable industry and research to develop and test innovative technologies under real-life conditions on the road network in Luxembourg, the Metz region in France and the Saarland in Germany.
In November, an information session was held to offer an overview of the test bed main objectives to the prime players in automobility and ICT, and the unique opportunities this scenario raised for companies to foster innovation and develop new business opportunities.
To put this development into context, one of the main Automobility cluster achievements in 2016 was the creation of a competence matrix, the goal being to arrive at a clear view on all the cluster member competences so that collaborative projects can be setup to best effect.
To create the matrix, Luxinnovation visited more than 15 members and organised three workshop sessions. The conclusions showed that significant business opportunities in connected and automated driving technologies exist.
Considering these national competencies, the strong ICT eco-system and the unique geographical position of Luxembourg with three neighbouring countries, an idea was hatched to set up a cross-border test bed that would allow for the testing and the development of connected and automated vehicles.
Since that time, Germany and France had signed a cooperation agreement in Feb 2017 based on a similar idea. Thanks to the excellent network of connections that the Automobility cluster has established in the Greater Region, the cluster managed to convince its peers from Germany that Luxembourg has strong assets to offer in the extension of the test bed to Luxembourg.
This cluster initiative gained wind in its sails thanks to strong support from the Ministry of the Economy and the MDDI (Ministry of Sustainable Development and Infrastructure) which led to the trilateral cooperation agreement signed at the IAA positioning Luxembourg firmly as a central player.
At the meeting, the cross-border test bed was presented, along with the main objectives, the functional domains and the project’s status.