TIER IV and TUM open Autoware research center to push open-source driving in Europe

A long-term base for research and training

According to the announcement, the center is funded through strategic research funding from TIER IV. It combines expertise from three TUM groups: the Chair of Automotive Technology (FTM) and the Professorships of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Autonomous Vehicle Systems (AVS).

The partners describe the center as a long-term base for autonomous driving research, open-source software development and doctoral training. It is also meant to connect academic, industrial and public-transport projects and to offer a platform for demonstrations and benchmark challenges. The stated goals are to strengthen TUM's role as a leading contributor to the Autoware community in Europe and to speed up the transfer of research into real-world mobility applications.

Three focus areas: safety, evaluation, scalability

The collaboration will concentrate on three areas:

• Safety: developing a hybrid architecture that combines deep-learning-based driving models with rule-based supervision. A verifiable "safety guardian" will monitor driving behavior and intervene when necessary based on defined safety constraints.
• Evaluation: creating a benchmarking and verification framework for component- and system-level testing across simulation, offline analysis and real-world operation. It builds on TUM's EDGAR research platform and CommonRoad expertise.
• Scalability: establishing a repeatable process for adapting and evaluating Autoware in new environments, with improvements contributed to open-source projects wherever appropriate.

Background: EDGAR and Europe's open-source push

The announcement points to the European Commission's concept paper on an open European software-defined vehicle platform. According to the release, the paper identifies a strong open-source strategy, reference implementations, standardized software components and shared validation tools as key foundations for European collaboration and competitiveness.

TUM has already shown this approach with EDGAR, its autonomous research vehicle running the open-source Autoware. At IAA MOBILITY 2025, EDGAR gave public demonstration rides from Messe München to downtown across urban, rural and highway environments. TUM also deployed EDGAR in Berlin within a week and demonstrated autonomous operation on the city's urban roads. That demonstration, carried out with TÜV-Verband for the German government, tested a new assessment methodology for Level 4 autonomous driving under real-world traffic conditions.

What it means for the European industry

TIER IV and TUM intend the initiative to provide a foundation for expanding the open autonomous driving ecosystem in Germany and across Europe. The collaboration aims to give European vehicle manufacturers technologies and evaluation methods that support open, safe, scalable and product-oriented autonomous driving systems.

"Safe autonomous driving at scale requires progress across AI, system architecture, verification and deployment," said Shinpei Kato, founder and CEO of TIER IV. He said the aim is to create technologies and open benchmarks that benefit the broader ecosystem.

Johannes Betz, Professor of Autonomous Vehicle Systems at TUM, said the university is combining learning-based methods with traditional rule-based systems to build autonomous systems that can scale but are also verifiably safe. He described Autoware as "a great baseline for autonomous driving research and education."

The partners say open software, shared evaluation methods and visible demonstrations will give organizations a common platform to test technologies, develop talent and advance autonomous mobility toward commercial and public use.