- The company has participated in a European consortium led by Eurecat, bringing together companies, technology centers, universities and public administrations from eight European countries.
- The R&D&I project provides automotive manufacturers, traffic managers, fleet operators and drivers with a comprehensive solution to detect, respond to and mitigate cyberattacks.
- The first validation was carried out in the urban area of the ADAS/CAV test circuit at Applus+ IDIADA, in Baix Penedès, replicating real metropolitan scenarios.
- This solution makes it possible to identify vulnerable vehicles, reduce the risk of security breaches, and enables vehicles themselves to protect and self-recover, ensuring trust and secure data exchange.
Ficosa, a global leader in vision, connectivity and safety solutions for the automotive industry, has contributed to the pilot tests of the European SELFY project in Catalonia. Coordinated by the Eurecat technology center, the initiative has demonstrated the effectiveness of new self-assessment and self-protection tools developed to enhance the resilience and cybersecurity of autonomous and connected vehicles in smart cities.
Demonstrations, also conducted in Austria, succeeded in detecting over 95% of vulnerable road users and more than 90% of security breaches.
Within the SELFY project, Ficosa contributed its expertise in camera‑based external perception technologies for vehicles, with two key areas of innovation. On the one hand, it worked on user privacy protection through AI‑driven anonymization techniques capable of automatically obscuring pedestrians’ faces and vehicle license plates. On the other hand, it developed solutions to safely interrupt vehicle maneuvers in the event of cyberattacks, thereby improving responsiveness to threats.
The collaboration between companies, technology centers, universities and public administrations “has enabled the creation of an innovative solution to address the challenges of autonomous and connected mobility, enhancing vehicle network cybersecurity and strengthening the reliability of these environments,” stated Juan Caubet, Director of the IT & OT Security Unit at Eurecat.
After three years of applied research and technological development, “SELFY offers automotive manufacturers, traffic managers, fleet operators and drivers a comprehensive solution to detect, respond to and mitigate cyberattacks, while preserving privacy and the integrity of autonomous mobility systems at all times,” said Fanny Breuil, Project Coordinator and Manager of Eurecat’s European Project Coordination Unit.
This solution makes it possible “to identify vulnerable vehicles, reduce the risk of security breaches, and ensure that vehicles are able to protect and self‑recover, guaranteeing trust and secure data exchange,” added Víctor Jiménez, Technical Coordinator of the SELFY project and researcher at Eurecat’s IT & OT Security Unit.
The first validation took place in the urban area of the ADAS/CAV test circuit at Applus+ IDIADA, in Baix Penedès, a track that replicates intersections, roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and merging lanes to faithfully reproduce real metropolitan scenarios.
Tests recreated situations such as detecting a vulnerable road user while a hacked vehicle transmitted misleading information, identifying sensor malfunctions through infrastructure data fusion, filtering unreliable cooperative messages, and safely interrupting an overtaking maneuver during a cyberattack. A real‑time anonymization algorithm was also verified, protecting sensitive data such as pedestrians’ faces and vehicle license plates.
“At IDIADA we have recreated maneuvers close to everyday traffic using test vehicles and mannequins, real vehicles and targeted attacks. The results confirm that SELFY tools improve perception and response to security incidents without compromising privacy,” said Manel Rodríguez, cybersecurity engineer at Applus+ IDIADA.
In parallel, Vienna hosted a demonstration in live city traffic with camera sensors and roadside communication units (RSUs) deployed throughout the city. After installing a high‑resolution camera and a communication unit in the road infrastructure, the SELFY system monitored the consistency between images and CAM (Cooperative Awareness Messages), accurately detecting artificially induced mismatches and validating the infrastructure’s ability to identify misaligned or tampered sensors.
“The urban pilot confirms that the same tools proven in closed‑track environments are equally effective in live traffic, an essential step towards adoption on a European scale,” stated Gernot Lenz, Traffic Management Systems Coordinator at the City of Vienna.
Intelligent systems for autonomous and connected driving
The SELFY project has developed three main toolsets focusing on situational awareness and collaborative perception, a cooperative resilience and recovery system, and a trust and data management system.
The situational awareness and collaborative perception system merges vehicle perception with infrastructure information to build a unified vision of the environment. The tools in this solution continuously analyze sensor and cooperative message consistency to detect discrepancies and assess the reliability of each source before any driving decisions are made.
In addition, the resilience and recovery tools are designed to protect cooperative, connected and automated mobility (CCAM) environments from cyberattacks and security breaches. Managed through a Vehicle Security Operations Center (VSOC), the system enhances resilience, robustness and trust levels, while providing a safe degraded mode for vehicles when needed.
The trust and secure data management tools ensure information protection and privacy. They incorporate algorithms to detect malicious behavior in both vehicles and roadside units, apply AI‑based anonymization techniques, and use post‑quantum cryptography for software update mechanisms to guarantee integrity and traceability for every new version.
The SELFY project has been funded with €6 million through the Horizon Europe program. The consortium includes partners from eight different countries: from Spain, Eurecat, Tecnalia, AEVAC, Ficosa and Applus+ IDIADA; from France, CEA and CANON; from Germany, Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt and Fev.io; from Austria, Virtual Vehicle and the City of Vienna; from the Netherlands, Eindhoven University of Technology; from Japan, Okayama University; from Australia, RMIT University; and from Turkey, FEV.
