XR based Driving Simulation for Vehicle Engineering Design, Testing and Regulation
If XR based driving simulation is used since several decades , it is introduced today in many affordable as well as high-performance driving simulation systems, including digital driver station models and AI generated virtual environments and scenarios for vehicle engineering design, testing and regulation for ADAS and autonomous vehicles.
The Driving Simulation Association organizes in the framework of the DSC 2026 Conference, the “Smart Vehicle for Sustainable Mobility” contest, in cooperation with AVSimulation and IPG-Automotive.
The contest is open to students from Master or PhD students, individually or in small groups, interested in sustainable cities, simulation and smart vehicles. Inscriptions will open on May 15th: Contest Registration
The proposed solutions must be submitted by July 15th. The Selection Committee will evaluate the propositions and select the 3 winners, with a 1,000€ price for the first and 500€ for the second winner, all 3 receiving a winner award.
Winners will present their solutions at the DSC Europe 2026 VR conference on September 16th, 2026 at the Congress Center of Antibes. Transportation costs will be taken into charge by the Driving Simulation Association.
Tasks
In this contest, you will have to create the virtual environment of the selected area of interest as well as realistic traffic scenario, including passenger vehicles, public transport systems such as buses and trams, and active mobility options like bicycles and pedestrian movement, respecting OpenDrive and OpenScenario allowing interoperability with external autonomous vehicle models.
First, define a scenario:
- Choose an interesting area in Nice (for example, see the selected OpenStreetMap area). You may extend it if you want, the goal being to identify a place where optimizing the traffic lights network has a significant impact on the traffic.
Evaluation
We expect you to be creative. So, candidates are not evaluated on their programming skills alone.
The Selection Committee will evaluate your solution considering its innovativeness, its levels of realism of the generated environment and road traffic, as well as real time performance.
To submit your solution, you must provide a short video and a paper which format is close to scientific papers. You can find the guidelines and the template on the submission page.