# An Overview of Cooperative Driving in the European Union: Policies and Practices
## 4 Current State of the Art of C-ITS Systems  
In this section, open-road and laboratory test activities for the development of cooperative driving expertise are outlined. Given the extensive nature of the topic addressed, what follows may not be considered exhaustive. Suffice it to think that connected driving accounts for around 5% of the total budget allocated for the societal challenge 'Smart Green and Integrated Transport' within the Horizon2020 research and innovation programme. As a result, there are several EU-funded projects that have been launched in the last years and many others will be initiated before the end of the seven year work programme. Instances of such projects are: AnaVANET [41], related to the development of a visualisation tool for vehicular networks; ENSEMBLE [42], related to track platooning services; MAVEN [43], related to intersection safety; 5 Gcar [44], related to fifth generation cellular communication; and AUTOPLOT [45], related to IoT V2X applications. However, there are also several initiatives, such as testbeds developed by the academic community and research bodies, which, although not widely promoted or disclosed, turn out to be noteworthy and particularly relevant for taking a step forward in cooperative and automated driving tasks. First, in [46], the so-called IT-AV Automotive Environment, developed in Aveiro, is presented. It is a testbed comprising roadside units (RSUs), connected to the IT-AV datacentre through Ethernet links, and onboard units (OBUs), which are located in vehicles. They connect with each other via standard IEEE 802.11p/WAVE links and are connected to the RSUs and Internet through IEEE 802.11p/WAVE, IEEE 802.11g/Wi-Fi, or cellular links, thus enabling both V2V and V2I tasks. Therefore, on the one hand, OBUs can have access to vehicle information (such as position, heading, and speed), which are elaborated by the embedded in-car node processor to take local decisions and be notified to other vehicles. On the other hand, vehicles can also receive road information from the surroundings by means of embedded car video cameras and sensors. Such information will be transmitted to the OBUs using IEEE 802.11g/Wi-Fi. A virtualized network function (VNF) video transcoding camera-based car overtaking scenario was evaluated as a use case. However, other VNFs can also be tested such as car crash detection, emergency info dissemination, and collision avoidance. As shown in [47], in February 2018, Telefonica and Huawei presented the 5G-V2X testbed, developed in their 5G Joint Innovation Lab in Madrid, which adopted the latest 3 GPP new radio (NR) standard. In particular, a novel, self-contained frame structure for radio transmission, based on the so-called ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) mode, was implemented for V2X applications and tested in the case of vehicle platooning applications. Additionally, to further reduce transmission latency, sparse coded multiple access (SCMA)-based grant free access technology was also investigated. Moreover, a modular framework was adopted for the testbed described in [48], whose effectiveness was exemplarily shown by implementing a crossing assistant scenario aimed at avoiding collisions at intersections. The testbed was based on seven different modules and a three-layer plug-in software architecture. The main components were: model cars at a scale of 1:18; a specifically developed camera-based positioning system; a central control unit responsible for management, car configuration, and car control; and a visualization unit providing the status of simulation on a graphical user interface (GUI) and showing which cars are communicating as well as what information they are exchanging. In particular, the model cars are equipped with a single board computer as a processing unit, an electronic brushed motor, special hardware for attaching different sensors, and a Wi-Fi communication unit.