Thoralf Knote is Honorary Professor for "Safety of Automated Road Traffic" at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences since May 2021.

As head of the Department of Traffic Safety and Vehicle Automation at the Dresden Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (IVI), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thoralf Knote (54) is never bored. In an interview with "Verkehrslage", the Leipzig-born professor explained why he is also committed to teaching at the TU Dresden as an honorary professor, what role a "virus" (which for once has nothing to do with Corona) plays in a positive sense, what his current research topics are and why entering the faculty feels like "coming home" to him.

Verkehrslage (V): Prof. Knote, the faculty is not entirely foreign to you, is it?

Prof. Knote (smiles): In fact, it is very familiar to me. I am more or less a child of the faculty - and even of its predecessor, the Hochschule für Verkehrswesen (HfV). In 1990, I started my studies in Transport Engineering at this university. In the middle of that, in 1992, the HfV was integrated into the TU Dresden as a faculty.

V: Was that a big break for you and the other students?

Prof. Knote: We students practically didn't feel it. As uncertain as the times seemed at the time, we felt that the actions of the people involved were extremely professional. I was initially in the field of study of transport sciences with a specialisation in railways, as I had been delegated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn. The career path planned for us after graduation did not exist in this form at the Bundesbahn. At that time, I was able to change my specialisation without any complications. I am very grateful to those responsible for this to this day. I did a specialisation with Professor Rüger and a second specialisation with Professor Loose and Professor Schnabel in transport planning and traffic engineering.

V: Was your path to becoming a specialist in the "safety of automated road traffic" – as your honorary professorship is called, in connection with human-machine interaction – preordained?

Prof. Knote: Not preordained, but it has built on each other over the past 27 years since I graduated. My dissertation, completed here at the faculty in 2002 in the field of traffic engineering, deals with the "capacity of side flows on priority junctions". The basis was a model-theoretically underpinned traffic flow simulation in which the focus was on interactions between road users. This deepened when I was in charge of the driving simulator at the Fraunhofer IVI between 2006 and 2015, which was used, among other things, to conduct studies on human-machine interfaces for passenger cars. The focus was on the behaviour of drivers in the area of tension between complex traffic processes and the vehicle, both with and without driver assistance systems.

V: Where do you see the potential as well as the risks in connected and (partially) automated driving?

Prof. Knote: Compared to many colleagues, I have a different opinion on this. I think that a highly automated or even autonomously driving vehicle without interaction with other vehicles and without interaction with the environment must reach its destination with reasonable travel comfort and at a reasonable travel speed. This should not depend on other vehicles and the infrastructure. Responsibilities are then shifted, which I do not believe will last in the long run. The demands of the Ethics Committee also state that highly automated or autonomous driving functions should only be used if there is a clear improvement in safety compared to personal-driven vehicles.

V: So is the dream of fully automated driving still a long way off?

Prof. Knote: We are still more than a decade away from that. I think society is not yet fully aware of what it actually means when vehicles are supposed to drive around without a driver - hence the demands of the ethics committee. For this, important basics around sensor systems, their safety test procedures and data bases still need to be clarified. Safety must always come first.

V: Do you also communicate this to your students?

Prof. Knote: Yes, I would like to bring the topic of safety more strongly into teaching. The more automated traffic becomes, the more important the aspect of safety becomes. To this end, in my lectures at the Chair of Automobile Engineering I go into greater depth on the ISO standard 26262, which is important for highly automated driving functions. It is a comprehensive work that specifies the planning, development and testing requirements for certain functions in vehicles. Prospective vehicle developers should have heard about it during their studies.

V: The topic of teaching runs through your biography. Where does your drive come from to get involved in this – alongside your actual job at the Fraunhofer IVI?

I "caught" a virus 32 years ago. And that virus is: the fun of imparting knowledge. During my A-levels at the maritime college in Wustrow, three or four fellow students approached me and asked me to help them prepare for the physics exam. I liked the subject. We went to a seminar room and I did a mixture of lecture and exercise. That's when I realised: Man, I'm enjoying this. Then I continued with maths. There were already six of them sitting in front of me. I really thought up problems with solutions. And at some point I sat in front of twenty people. Yes, that got a bit out of hand. (laughs)

V: And your teaching at the faculty, what is the origin of that?

Prof. Knote: I was a research assistant to Professor Schnabel here for six years. Right at the beginning, one of my conditions was that I was allowed to hold my own lecture. That was not usual and he thought about it for a moment - but then let me do it. During that time, I enjoyed imparting knowledge to the full. And then I also felt a bit inwardly about returning to my old home, transport and traffic sciences at the TU Dresden. I studied here, I gave my first lecture here, I worked here. I was always very happy here.

V: What is your approach to teaching?

Prof. Knote: A (university) teacher is a mediator of knowledge. I impart facts. During my time as a student, there was a great deal of discourse, especially among the teachers, about what the focus should be in the education of transport engineers. There were two positions fighting: the representatives of a generalist education and those who thought that graduates should have an overview of contexts and be equipped with in-depth factual knowledge in certain areas. I tend to belong to the second group. I am a big fan of lectures with the opportunity to ask questions. I also think it is extremely important to deepen the knowledge imparted in lectures by means of exercises or homework. I can't force the students. But I know that many take advantage of the offer.

V: Let's draw a line between the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (IVI) and the faculty. Are there any points of contact?

Prof. Knote: Definitely. We at the IVI have already done projects with various professorships of the faculty. Students from the faculty are with us as research assistants, interns or with theses. We have a very strong practical orientation through our clients. The TU Dresden is better in terms of methodological principles. I would describe the cooperation, where it fits, as a positive symbiosis.

V: You can tell that you are passionate about your topics, whether it's research or teaching. What motivates you?

Prof. Knote: I find it extremely motivating to see the fruits of my work, such as the first fast-charging battery bus on line 61 in Dresden. And then to know that I contributed to it and made a contribution to the mobility of tomorrow. I would also like to have that feeling in the area of safety. To have contributed to increasing road safety through research or in teaching by training students – not only in connected and automated driving, but especially there. I am confident that there will be such input for me one day.

V: Thank you very much for the interview

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thoralf Knote

Porträt eines Mnnes
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Honorary Professor for Safety of Automated Road Traffic

– affiliated to the Chair of Automotive Engineering - Faculty of Transport –

"Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, TU Dresden

Mail: thoralf.knote@ivi.fraunhofer.de

I think society is not yet fully aware of what it actually means when vehicles are supposed to drive around without a driver (...) For this, important basics around sensor systems, their safety test procedures and data bases still need to be clarified. Safety must always come first.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thoralf Knote, Transport and Traffic Sciences at TU Dresden

About Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thoralf Knote (excerpts)

- 1984 - 1986 Training as a skilled worker for railway transport technology in East Berlin

- 1990 - 1992 Studies of Transport Engineering at "Friedrich List" Hochschule für Verkehrswesen

- 1992 - 1995 Continued studies at "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at Technical University of Dresden, specialisation: local public transport, transport planning, traffic engineering

- 1995 - 2001 Worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Transport Planning and Road Traffic at TU Dresden; teaching (seminars, lectures) in the subjects of road traffic engineering, road traffic safety, traffic engineering design

- 2002 Lectures in road traffic engineering at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia

- 2002 Dissertation in the field of road traffic engineering at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences of TU Dresden in 2002

- Since 2002 at the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (IVI) as (2001 - 2004), group leader (2004 - 2008), head of department Vehicle and Transportation Systems Engineering with 45 employees (2008 - present)

- Since 2009 guest lecturer at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences of TU Dresden in the subject Road Traffic Engineering

- Since May 2021 Honorary Professor for "Safety of Automated Road Traffic" at the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences , linked to the Chair of Automobile Engineering (Head: Prof. Günther Prokop). For this professorship and for the professorship of Integrated Transport Planning and Traffic Engineering (Head: Prof. Regine Gerke), he is active in teaching in very specific subject areas.