We consider the recognition of dangerous situations in vehicle traffic. Unscented Kalman filters are used to predict vehicle trajectories within a short prediction horizon [t₀, t₀+ Deltat]. Based on this prediction, for each vehicle pair the mutual distance is computed for [t₀, t₀+ Deltat], whereby the distance accounts for the geometric distance, for the prediction uncertainties as well as for the spatial dimensions of the vehicles. If at least one of the mutual distances falls below a distance threshold isin within [t₀, t₀ + Deltat], then a dangerous situation arises for the cooperative group and may lead to an autonomous cooperative driving manoeuvre. This approach allows the usage of the system in a mixed environment (only some vehicles are cooperative and cognitive). Obstacles can also be handled. The key issues in this ongoing research work are the recognition and classification of dangerous situations and the formation of a cooperative group constituting an operational unit. A common relevant picture within a group coordinator fuses the necessary information from all cooperative vehicles of the group and forms the basis for situation recognition and classification. This paper is a step to expand a Cooperative Collision Warning System (CCWS) to an integrated Cooperative Collision Avoidance and Cooperative Collision Mitigation System (CCAMS).

Manufacturing as a Service (MaaS) enables a paradigm shift in the current manufacturing landscape, from integrated production and inflexible, fragile supply chains to open production and flexible, robust supply chains. As part of this evolution, new scaling effects for production capacities and customer segments are possible. This article describes how to accomplish this paradigm shift for the automotive industry by building a digital MaaS ecosystem for the large-scale automotive innovation project Catena-X, which aims at a standardized global data exchange based on European values. A digital MaaS ecosystem can not only achieve scaling effects, but also realize new business models and overcome current and future challenges in the areas of legislation, sustainability, and standardization. This article analyzes the state-of-the-art of MaaS ecosystems and describes the development of a digital MaaS ecosystem based on an updated and advanced version of the reference architecture for smart connected factories, called the Smart Factory Web. Furthermore, this article describes a demonstrator for a federated MaaS marketplace for Catena-X which leverages the full technological potential of this digital ecosystem. In conclusion, the evaluation of the implemented digital ecosystem enables the advancement of the reference architecture Smart Factory Web, which can now be used as a blueprint for open, sustainable, and resilient digital manufacturing ecosystems.

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term “envirofied” Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management).

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is cited as the latest means for making manufacturing more flexible, cost effective, and responsive to changes in customer demands. However, a major concern surrounding the IIoT is interoperability between devices and machines that function within different protocols and architectures. This paper presents the Smart Factory Web (SFW), which is based on the IIoT concept of i mproving factory-to-factory interoperability. The proposed SFW enables secure data and service integration in cross-site application scenarios as well as 'plug & work' functions for devices, machines, and data analytics software by applying industrial standards, Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA), and Automation Markup Language (AutomationML). To reach the goal, experimental factories that have heterogeneous manufacturing infrastructures are linked and the SFW is implemented in four phases. The usage scenario, called order-driven adaptive production, used to align capacity across factories, will also be validated in the real deployment.

The paper describes a reference architecture for open marketplaces to be used for networked stakeholders in industrial production ecosystems. The motivation for such an endeavor comes from the idea to apply the basic principle of the platform economy to offer functions of an asset “as a service” to industrial production, including the associated supply chain networks. Currently, commercial offers of “production as a service” usually lead to proprietary systems with the risk of platform vendor lock-ins. Hence, there is a need for an open approach that relies upon international (emerging) standards, especially those from IETF, IEC, the Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA). The presented approach enables federation of marketplaces according to well-defined interfaces. This article proposes a technology-independent open architecture derived from functional and non-functional system requirements and driven by the idea of the Smart Factory Web, a testbed of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). Furthermore, the architecture of the Smart Factory Web (SFW) platform is presented and assessed against the current and future demands of open federated marketplaces for industrial production ecosystems.