The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge 2016: boosting the introduction of cooperative automated vehicles

The Grand Cooperative Driving Challenge (GCDC), with the aim to boost the introduction of cooperative automated vehicles by means of wireless communication, is presented. Experiences from the previous edition of GCDC, which was held in Helmond in the Netherlands in 2011, are summarized, and an overview and expectations of the challenges in the 2016 edition are discussed. Two challenge scenarios, cooperative platoon merge and cooperative intersection passing, are specified and presented. One demonstration scenario for emergency vehicles is designed to showcase the benefits of cooperative driving. Communications closely follow the newly published cooperative intelligent transport system standards, while interaction protocols are designed for each of the scenarios. For the purpose of interoperability testing, an interactive testing tool is designed and presented. A general summary of the requirements on teams for participating in the challenge is also presented.