ENVELOPE

This use case focuses on vehicle testing based on mixed reality concepts. The Digital Twin service dynamically generates “virtual” objects and sends them to the vehicle with the purpose of testing the vehicle control algorithm without having to rely on real physical targets such as vehicles, pedestrians or other VRUs (Vulnerable Road Users).
The system's technical complexity is evident in the establishment of a real-time bidirectional communication channel between the vehicle and the Digital Twin via the Digital Twin service. The vehicle continuously transmits periodic data such as position and sensor data, which the Digital Twin service uses to generate and send out virtual objects (a list of objects) for testing the vehicle's behavior (control algorithm).

The Digital Twin service plays a crucial role in achieving realistic mixed testing. It collects live data from multiple vehicles and road users in real road environments, such as a city intersection, to build a realistic representation of the world. This data is then used to perform vehicle behavior tests as if the vehicle were physically present in the real road location.
Since mixed reality testing should happen in real time, this requires dynamic network resource reservation to ensure the live data from the selected sources (UEs) are not disturbed by general-purpose traffic. Furthermore, the Digital Twin shall run in real time. Therefore, the digital twin shall be as simple as possible.

The collected data implies a collection of small volumes of data for a short period of time (e.g., less than 3 min.), where low data latency is needed – the communication is time-critical but not safety-critical.

In this use case, the Digital Twin service requests the underlying V2X communication services to request the telecommunication operator (5G network) via newly designed APIs for the low bandwidth and low latency connection needed. The network operator checks the possibility of allocating the necessary resources in time based on the available resources nearby.