SMART VEHICLE AND MOBILITY
Sophia Antipolis is investing in sustainable mobility and smart vehicles
ASSETS FOR DELIVERING CUTTING-EDGE SERVICES
Sophia Antipolis has all the assets required to deliver cutting-edge services in the smart vehicle and sustainable mobility sectors
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KEY PLAYERS
Renault, Toyota, Mercedes, NPX automotive, Bosch, Marelli, Altran Automotive, IBM, EURECOM and many innovative players including Epicnpoc and SAP.
A FULL TECHNOLOGICAL VALUE CHAIN
Sophia Antipolis and Nice boast the full technological value chain required by Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. The smart vehicle topic is cross-sectorial and goes beyond a sector-based approach. It is sustained by the ecosystem and the genetic makeup of Sophia Antipolis, with all of its richness and multi-disciplinarity.
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A CUTTING-EDGE TERRITORY IN WHICH TO DEPLOY THIS TECHNOLOGY
Sophia Antipolis is also a cutting-edge territory in which to pilot technologies for users.
A NATURALLY ATTRACTIVE TERRITORY
The French Riviera is naturally attractive. It features urban areas, a seafront, mountains, a motorway, a white zone with no mobile phone reception, smart cities, technology parks, expertise and major universities, and has Monaco and Italy on its doorstep.
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Sophia Antipolis is investing in sustainable mobility and smart vehicles
THE PROJECT
BACKGROUND
Promoted by the Sophia Antipolis territory, the Smart Vehicle Côte d’Azur initiative came about at the end of 2017 to enable the Riviera’s smart vehicle ecosystem to exchange views and gain visibility.
The origin of the initiative is the technology park’s strong capacity for resilience, which specifically resulted from the various restructuring plans which have taken place in the microelectronics industry since 2013. The latter meant skills were identified and Smart Vehicle stakeholders were drawn in. This trend culminated in 2018, when Renault decided to acquire most of the Intel teams in Sophia Antipolis and to open a software lab on-site.
SCIENTIFIC EXCELLENCE
Moreover, the presence and the historic importance of scientific expertise in developing autonomous and connected vehicles (artificial intelligence, complex digital systems, embedded software, etc.) in companies and research institutes in Sophia Antipolis make the park a strong player when it comes to developing smart vehicles, which are certainly poised for very significant development in years to come.
A CO-INNOVATION MODEL
In this context, in November 2017, several companies, local start-ups, research institutions and large international groups organised themselves into a network in order to pool knowledge and to cooperate. It was known as the “Smart Vehicle Côte d’Azur” initiative – SVCA. This group of connected and smart mobility players hopes to become a shared platform for development, enabling its members to co-innovate – a model recognised as being particularly efficient.
A promoted and supported initiative
Goals & Missions
automotive valley
The initiative promoted and supported from the outset by CASA has a threefold objective:
> To unite and draw attention to local players around the subject of connected vehicles to make the territory visible on the national and international stage, enabling it to become a European hub in the sector.
> To contribute to the development of the territory by means of local projects providing mobility services and by developing eco-friendly technologies, in the framework of fruitful public-private partnerships.
> To establish Sophia Antipolis as a fully-fledged European Automotive Valley to help make the French Riviera into a reference site for R&D, testing and social adoption of smart vehicles.
COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
The initiative’s steering committee comes together once a month to move forward on three subject areas in a pragmatic manner:
> Ecosystem: Mapping/pitch/territory strengths
> Territorial attractiveness: Promotion/International prospecting
> Territorial strategy: partnerships, tools to deploy, developmental projects.
The Smart Vehicle Côte d’Azur initiative hosts Get Togethers — professional gatherings between players working in the broader automobile sector, using a format whereby the floor is given to an academic, a large group, a start-up or an institutional figure who gives a 20-minute (maximum) presentation on their fields of activity and expertise, presenting whatever the player can bring to the SVCA ecosystem and setting out whatever the player expects from the ecosystem. The aim of these fructuous informal gatherings is to coordinate the smart vehicle ecosystem and to enable its members to get to know one another in order to encourage collaborative projects.
A supported ecosystem
A PUBLIC SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY STRATEGY
ECO-MOBILITY
CASA’s sustainable mobility strategy is based on an ambition to create global eco-mobility, for example by creating safe cycle paths, using low-polluting materials, and by trialling public self-driving shuttles.
CASA also actively supports issues linked to individual mobility, by striving to validate the software by researchers in the technology park. Indeed, initial smart vehicle tests require verification that functioning vehicles respond adequately to the developments made to them.
TESTING GROUND
Sophia Antipolis Urban Community has joined forces with the Smart Vehicle Côte d’Azur initiative to turn Sophia Antipolis into an open-air testing ground. It has created a closed track, away from traffic, in which to fine-tune vehicles and their embedded intelligence, in the immediate vicinity of Sophia’s R&D laboratories. The aim is to be able to test a configuration and if necessary, to carry out modifications developed in the laboratory in a very short lapse of time, without detailed planning required due to the distance of the test track. The 100 x 100 m track is located in the Trois Moulins area.
Under development
THE NEXT STEP
The next step will be independent use of vehicles on certain pre-identified roads in Sophia Antipolis, to test the performance of vehicles in a real yet safe setting.
