Everyone can show promising results in simulation, but regulators and cities are asking: does it actually work on public roads? Vehicle Tech Week sat down with Mircea Gradu ahead of his presentation on Day 2 of Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo Europe 2026 (June 23-25) on safe autonomous deployment to explore how a groundbreaking CAV AI research platform is solving critical industry, safety and infrastructure challenges, and why companies can’t afford to miss his presentation if they want to deploy intelligent vehicles
What’s one thing happening in the industry now that people can’t afford to ignore?
The shift from prescriptive rules to safety-case-based regulatory frameworks is accelerating faster than most organizations realize. In February 2026, UNECE adopted a draft global regulation for automated driving systems built around safety cases rather than checklists; the US Department of Transportation launched its Autonomous Vehicle Audit Framework almost simultaneously. If your safety strategy relies on ticking boxes against static standards, you’re behind. Regulatory ground is moving under everyone’s feet. Companies that can’t demonstrate a living, data-driven safety case will find themselves locked out of deployment approvals.
What’s one real-world challenge the industry is struggling with, and how is it being solved?
Bridging simulation to real-world deployment with quantitative confidence. Everyone can show promising results in simulation, but the question regulators and cities ask is: does it actually work on public roads? Our platform in Orange County addresses this through a three-phase validation pipeline: simulation first, then X-in-the-loop testing with a real EV at Argonne National Lab, then deployment across 25 live public intersections. The combined controller showed a 38.4% energy reduction in simulation and 36.1% in XIL. That tight agreement means we now screen dozens of controller configurations in software and trust that real-world results will follow. It’s the kind of sim-to-real traceability the industry desperately needs.
What’s the biggest misconception in your field right now?
That safe autonomous deployment is primarily a vehicle technology problem. Investment and attention prioritize making the vehicle smarter – better cameras, neural networks, onboard compute – but our work demonstrates that infrastructure-based intelligence is a critical missing layer. A lidar sensor mounted at an intersection protects every road user – pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles of any age or technology level – regardless of whether the approaching car has an ADAS feature. Vehicle-centric approaches can only protect people in front of vehicles that have the technology. That’s a fundamental coverage gap the industry hasn’t fully reckoned with.
What will attendees learn from your session that they won’t get anywhere else?
They’ll see real deployment data from the only global testbed that chains simulation, hardware-in-the-loop validation and live public road operation in a single pipeline – with quantitative agreement across all three phases. We’ll show how infrastructure-mounted lidar with AI edge computing delivers proactive near-miss detection and VRU safety heatmaps on public roads, privacy-preserving by design, operating across two municipalities with both fiber and 5G connectivity. No other platform globally combines live public road operation, an energy-efficiency mandate validated through real powertrain physics, and privacy-preserving vulnerable-road-user (VRU) safety analytics in a single integrated system.
What’s one trend that will define the next few years of the autonomous vehicle industry?
Infrastructure intelligence becoming a prerequisite, not an option. You’ll see cities and regulators demanding V2I communication standards and smart infrastructure as a condition for autonomous deployment – UNECE’s new regulation already points in this direction. By three to five years, the concept of deploying autonomous vehicles onto ‘dumb’ roads will look as outdated as deploying aircraft into uncontrolled airspace. The infrastructure layer – real-time sensing, signal coordination and VRU protection – will become as essential as the vehicle’s onboard stack.
If you had to give attendees one takeaway before they even arrive, what would it be?
Energy efficiency and traffic safety are not competing priorities – they’re reinforcing. The eco-driving controller that eliminates queueing for energy savings simultaneously eliminates the stop-and-go conditions where VRU conflicts are most common. Designing for one gives you the other. It should reshape how the industry frames its investment cases and how cities evaluate autonomous deployment proposals.
Who should be in the room for your conversation?
City transportation planners and municipal decision-makers who control intersection infrastructure. OEM and Tier 1 engineers working on V2I integration and ADAS validation pipelines. Regulatory and standards professionals transitioning to safety-case frameworks. And anyone responsible for VRU safety strategy – because infrastructure-based sensing changes the entire calculus of who is protected and how.
Why did you choose to present at Autonomous Vehicle Tech Expo Europe, and why is this audience important?
Europe is where regulatory convergence is most advanced. The EU’s harmonized safety framework and UNECE’s new global ADS regulation are setting the template the world will follow. Stuttgart, the heart of European automotive engineering, brings together the cross-disciplinary audience this work demands: OEMs, infrastructure suppliers, regulators and city planners in one room. And with Vehicle Tech Week uniting autonomous technology, testing and interiors on one platform, the audience understands that deployment isn’t just an autonomy problem – it spans validation testing, infrastructure and the full vehicle technology ecosystem.
In one sentence, why should someone attend Vehicle Tech Week this year?
It’s the only event where the full autonomous deployment chain – from AI and software-defined architectures through simulation and validation to regulatory frameworks and real-world infrastructure – converges on a single, cross-disciplinary platform.
What are you hoping to explore, learn or connect with at Vehicle Tech Week this year?
I’m keen to connect with European municipalities and infrastructure operators facing the same challenges we’ve tackled – cities that want to move from reactive crash data to proactive near-miss intelligence. I want to learn how the European regulatory community is operationalizing the new UNECE safety-case framework at the municipal level, because that’s where deployment happens. And I’m always looking for collaborators on the next phase: expanding the platform to more intersection types and validating the eco-driving controller across vehicle architectures beyond the BEV we’ve tested.
Mircea Gradu‘s presentation ‘Advanced connected and automated vehicle (CAV) AI research platform – deployment and results‘ will take place on June 25, 2026, at Room 1 as part of the ‘Safe autonomous deployment session 3′ at Autonomous Vehicle Technology Expo Europe 2026 (June 23-25).
Vehicle Tech Week Europe takes place at the Stuttgart Messe in Germany, June 23-25, 2026. Click here to register for your FREE pass
