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Fakultät für Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik
Studierende sitzt am Arbeitsplatz und schaut auf den Laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund
Development of a Simulation Framework for Investigating Teleoperated Driving via Mobile Networks

STORM: Simulated TeleOperation over Resilient Mobile Networks

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  • Project Group
Group photo of the participants involved in the STORM project group. © ComNets, 2026
Group photo of the participants involved in the STORM project group.
In the project group STORM (Simulated TeleOperation over Resilient Mobile Networks), six students developed a simulation framework for investigating teleoperated driving under realistic and reproducible conditions. Conducted during the winter semester 2025/26, the project group combined vehicle simulation, communication network emulation and a remote operator workstation to enable controlled evaluation of teleoperation applications.

Teleoperated driving relies on the continuous exchange of vehicle control commands, status information and multiple video streams between a vehicle and a remote operator. As the performance of such a system strongly depends on the underlying communication network, evaluating new concepts in real-world driving tests can be costly and difficult to reproduce. STORM therefore focused on establishing a controlled simulation environment in which both the driving scenario and the communication conditions can be adjusted systematically.

The developed framework combines the CARLA driving simulator with a remote operator workstation comprising a steering wheel, pedals, and a multi-monitor setup. To provide a realistic virtual test environment, the students generated a custom representation of the TU Dortmund University campus based on openly available geodata. For modeling realistic mobile-network characteristics, measurement data from the DoNext dataset was processed into Radio Environment Maps, providing location-dependent information about the available communication conditions. Thus, the framework can emulate changing network performance along the simulated driving route. An integration of the SEAMLESS multi-link approach enables switching between emulated mobile network operators according to the available connectivity.

The group further investigated adapting the bitrate of the camera streams to the available channel rate. An adaptive bitrate allocation distributes the predicted capacity among the individual video streams and takes the currently driven trajectory into account. For example, the camera view relevant to the direction of a turn can be prioritized to provide the operator with more visual information where it is most useful. To further support the remote operator, the students also extended the user interface with driving- and network-related information. 

The project group STORM established an integrated experimental framework in which teleoperated driving, video transmission and mobile-network behavior can be investigated in a reproducible virtual environment. The resulting setup provides a basis for further studies of resilient communication concepts for teleoperation without requiring a full-scale vehicle for every investigated network scenario.
 

Further information:

Chair: Chair of Communication Networks (ComNets)
Supervisors: Hendrik Schippers, Simon Schippers
Start date: October 2025