Project Meeting in Kronach – CONTROL Looks at the Big Picture and Defines Next Steps

From 3–4 February 2026, the CONTROL consortium met for joint project work at Rosenberg Fortress in Kronach. The host, Valeo Schalter und Sensoren GmbH, welcomed around 60 project participants for an exchange on current progress, the shared project understanding, and the technical direction of the project.

Already in January 2026, a core team at Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern worked out a common understanding of the technical direction and a storyline that connects the technical, methodological, and conceptual perspectives (“Big Picture”). At the center were the initial system architecture and a cross-domain framework for rail and road. Discussions ranged from use cases and demonstration scenarios to validation and metrics, as well as the role of the Smart Abstraction Model (SAM). The debate on strategies for managing uncertainties and residual risks in open environments also continued.

The workshop concluded that the various dimensions of the project are interlinked and provide a guiding line for future collaboration, including clear relationships between technical components, methods, and processes. At the project meeting in Kronach, the results of the “Big Picture” were reflected back into the consortium. The lively discussion in the plenary session provided valuable impulses for further developing the project architecture.

Several partners presented demonstrator concepts, ranging from real vehicle tests to HiL/ViL and simulation. In parallel workshops, terminology, workflows, and next steps were harmonized. The collaborative work of the CONTROL partners in Kronach was marked by intensive exchange and brought noticeable progress for the project’s further development in 2026.

Image: EICT for CONTROL Consortium