Implementation of What-if Scenarios in Coupled Vehicle and Traffic Co-simulation of Urban Areas

The increase in individual traffic in urban areas and increasing demands for environmental protection and energy efficiency are prompting major structural changes, not only in the traffic infrastructure, but also in vehicle guidance, towards automated and connected driving functions. While a standalone microscopic traffic simulations can predict the impact of infrastructural changes on traffic flow, it is only when coupled with a sophisticated vehicle simulation that a complete mapping of realistic traffic situations needed for safeguarding automated driving is possible. Coupling a vehicle simulator enables the representation of traffic actions in a photorealistic virtual 3D environment, as well as the integration and validation of sensor-based driving functions on sub-microscopic level and the extraction of critical scenarios of the real world. This publication illustrates the implementation of a real-time coupled co-simulation based on a digital twin of Ingolstadt from the research project SAVeNoW. This includes the integration of a consistent static virtual environment in both the traffic simulator SUMO and the Unreal Engine™ based vehicle simulator Tronis^®, as well as the exchange of dynamic information between the two co-simulators to enable conflict-free synchronization. Furthermore, the specific implementation of what-if scenarios in the traffic simulator and the correct representation of these scenarios in the vehicle simulator are discussed.