BerDiBa

Oct. 01, 2021 to Sep. 30, 2025

The project “Berliner Digitaler Bahnbetrieb” (BerDiBa) tests and develops technologies for automated driving on railroads. Fraunhofer FOKUS will use its expertise in environment perception for automated vehicles and adapt its artificial intelligence tools for traffic on rails.

The BerDiBa project is developing three aspects of digital rail operations: driverless trains, automatically scheduled maintenance, and automated remote control for situations in which autonomous travel is not possible, for example, due to the weather. The goal is to make rail transport safer and processes more efficient.

The Fraunhofer FOKUS research team from the Smart Mobility business unit has many years of experience in teaching automated vehicles to reliably and robustly perceive the environment around them. Fraunhofer FOKUS is contributing this expertise in close cooperation with the Daimler Center for Automotive Information Technology Innovations (DCAITI), which is based at TU Berlin. 

For example, the team will adapt its labeling tool FLLT.AI for generating lidar image training data for use in the rail environment. This will allow train artificial intelligence (AI) to use high-quality training data to learn how to correctly sense the environment. Using data from sensors, such as radar and lidar, mounted in and on the train, the AI can then form an accurate picture of the current situation after training and recognize and distinguish between static objects, such as signaling systems, tracks, and stations, as well as dynamic objects, such as people, animals, vehicles and other trains.

BerDiBa is funded with 7.6 million euros from the ProFIT innovation funding program of the state of Berlin and has a total volume of 13.7 million euros. In addition to Fraunhofer FOKUS, the consortium includes 11 partners:

Industry

  • acs plus GmbH
  • AAI GmbH
  • GSP GmbH
  • ITQ GmbH
  • neurocat GmbH
  • Siemens Mobility GmbH (consortium leader)
  • Teraki GmbH

Research and Science

  • DFKI
  • Fraunhofer HHI
  • TU Berlin
  • Zuse Institute Berlin