Munich – October 15, 2026 -- TIER IV and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have established the TUM Autoware Research Center by TIER IV, a multi-year research collaboration that combines three TUM research groups to build safe, scalable autonomous driving systems on the open-source Autoware stack.
TIER IV is funding the center strategically. The groups involved are the Chair of Automotive Technology (FTM) and the Professorships of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Autonomous Vehicle Systems (AVS). The center is meant to serve as a long-term base for autonomous driving research, open-source software development and doctoral training. It will also link academic, industrial and public-transport projects and offer a platform for demonstrations and benchmark challenges.
Open-source strategy is a pillar of the European Commission's vehicle platform concept
The European Commission's concept paper on an open European software-defined vehicle platform names a strong open-source strategy, reference implementations, standardized software components and shared validation tools as key foundations for European collaboration and competitiveness. TIER IV and TUM cite this paper as the backdrop for the initiative.
EDGAR vehicle adapted to Berlin within a week
TUM's autonomous research vehicle EDGAR runs on Autoware. At IAA MOBILITY 2025, it gave public demonstration rides from Messe München to downtown Munich across urban, rural and highway environments. Within a week, the TUM team then deployed EDGAR on the urban roads of Berlin. Working with TÜV-Verband for the German government, the team tested a new assessment methodology for Level 4 autonomous driving in real-world traffic.
Three research tracks target safety, evaluation and scalability
- Safety: a hybrid architecture that pairs deep-learning-based driving models with rule-based supervision. A verifiable "safety guardian" will monitor driving behavior and intervene when defined safety constraints require it.
- Evaluation: 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 platform and CommonRoad expertise.
- Scalability: a repeatable process for adapting and evaluating Autoware in new environments. Improvements will be contributed to open-source projects wherever appropriate.
Partners target tools for European vehicle manufacturers
TIER IV and TUM intend the initiative to support an open autonomous driving ecosystem in Germany and across Europe. They aim to give European vehicle manufacturers technologies and evaluation methods for open, safe, scalable and product-oriented autonomous driving systems.
TIER IV founder and CEO Shinpei Kato said the combination of TUM's research capabilities and TIER IV's experience deploying Autoware should yield technologies and open benchmarks that benefit the wider ecosystem. Johannes Betz, Professor of Autonomous Vehicle Systems at TUM, said TUM is combining learning-based methods with traditional rule-based systems so that autonomous systems can scale while remaining verifiably safe.