Testing of Future Vehicles at Borgo 4.0 in Lioni
The testing of future vehicles on the Borgo 4.0 track has begun in the municipality of Lioni, in the province of Avellino. Autonomous, sustainable, and connected vehicles to next-generation infrastructures are being tested on the circuit built in Lioni as part of the Borgo 4.0 technological platform, a public-private partnership coordinated by the managing entity «Anfia Automotive» with 54 companies in the sector, three public research centers, five Campanian universities, and the CNR.
From June to September, prototypes developed by companies will alternate to test what has been designed and developed in the laboratory so far. The first to hit the track was the new Fiat Professional E-Ducato, produced in Italy by Stellantis, for the F-Mobility Project. In the coming weeks, the testing phase will also involve a “City Logistic” service that will involve the electric Ducato to optimize courier deliveries, in relation to traffic and the goods to be delivered.
Application in a real context will allow the verification of the vehicle’s performance, both on standard routes and on routes with different morphological and geographical configurations. The testing phase will also serve to test the operation of the battery park of future commercial vehicles, making energy consumption performance more efficient. The two-carriage electric bus by Blue Engineering, based in Turin and Pomigliano d’Arco, is also being tested. The two-carriage bus will run in area 7 of the Borgo 4.0 track in Lioni to test various modes of electric traction use, wireless charging, and batteries.
A testing phase will also follow for the city streets where various smart applications have been installed, making Lioni a true smart city. Giovanni Fabozzi, coordinator of the Borgo 4.0 project on behalf of Anfia, explains that at the end of the testing operations, a public demonstration of the technologies developed in the projects over these years will be scheduled. All testing activities are supervised by the Municipal Police Control Room, led by Commander Giuseppe Aiello, to verify the technological interconnectivity of the electronic devices installed on the streets of Lioni and the real-time data transmission.
Promoted by ANFIA, National Association of the Automotive Industry Supply Chain, the platform is made with the involvement of a public-private partnership that includes 54 companies in the sector, 3 public research centers, 5 Campanian universities, and the CNR, with a total of 200 researchers involved. Through research, development, and technology transfer actions, the project is creating the first example in Italy, in the Borgo of Lioni in the province of Avellino, of a smart city with intelligent and connected urban and suburban roads designed to test the most advanced solutions related to the development of new technological trends and autonomous and connected mobility. New traffic and infrastructure monitoring systems, innovative materials for safer and lighter cars, technologies for the electrification and ecological transition of the sector, solutions for the provision of infomobility and intelligent maintenance services, all the main future trajectories of the Automotive are involved in the 16 research projects developed by Borgo 4.0.
In particular, the infrastructure will support study, research, and experimentation activities on the streets of the Borgo of Lioni, which from today lends itself to being used as a laboratory and real scenario for the construction of solutions for communication and data exchange between intelligent vehicles – V2V Vehicle-Vehicle model – and between vehicles and infrastructure – V2I Vehicle-Infrastructure model. Borgo 4.0 represents the first integrated platform realized in a real environment in Europe to develop and test a plurality of innovative solutions for future mobility driven by digitalization and environmental sustainability.