TIER IV and Technical University of Munich establish Autoware research center to advance the open autonomous driving ecosystem

TOKYO and MUNICH, Oct. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- TIER IV, the pioneering force behind Autoware, the world's leading open-source software for autonomous driving, and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have established the TUM Autoware Research Center by TIER IV through a multi-year strategic research collaboration. Bringing together three TUM research groups, the initiative aims to advance safe and scalable autonomous driving systems based on Autoware, strengthen TUM's role as a leading contributor to the Autoware community in Europe, and accelerate the transfer of research into real-world mobility applications.

Background

As vehicles become more autonomous, connected and software-defined, open-source software is becoming increasingly important to Europe's automotive industry. The European Commission's concept paper on an open European software-defined vehicle platform identifies a strong open-source strategy, reference implementations, standardized software components and shared validation tools as key foundations for European collaboration and competitiveness.

TUM has demonstrated this approach through EDGAR, its autonomous research vehicle running the open-source Autoware. At IAA MOBILITY 2025, EDGAR offered public demonstration rides from Messe München to downtown across urban, rural and highway environments, showcasing how open-source software, research and engineering can be integrated and evaluated under varied real-world traffic conditions.

TUM has also demonstrated the rapid adaptation to a new city. Within a week, the TUM team successfully deployed EDGAR and demonstrated autonomous operation on the urban roads of Berlin. This demonstration, in collaboration with TÜV-Verband, tested a new assessment methodology for Level 4 autonomous driving under real-world traffic conditions for the German government.

Collaboration overview

Through strategic research funding from TIER IV, the TUM Autoware Research Center by TIER IV will bring together expertise from TUM research groups at the Chair of Automotive Technology (FTM), the Professorships of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Autonomous Vehicle Systems (AVS). The center will serve as a long-term base for autonomous driving research, open-source software development and doctoral training. It will also connect academic, industrial and public-transport projects and provide a platform for demonstrations and benchmark challenges.

The collaboration will focus on three areas:

• Safety: Developing a hybrid architecture that combines deep-learning-based driving models with rule-based supervision. A verifiable "safety guardian" will monitor driving behavior and intervene when necessary based on defined safety constraints.
• Evaluation: Creating a benchmarking and verification framework for component- and system-level testing across simulation, offline analysis and real-world operation, building on TUM's EDGAR research platform and CommonRoad expertise.
• Scalability: Establishing a repeatable process for adapting and evaluating Autoware in new environments, with improvements contributed to open-source projects wherever appropriate.

Future prospects

TIER IV and TUM intend the initiative to provide a foundation for expanding the open autonomous driving ecosystem in Germany and across Europe, connecting academic research, industrial development and public-transport projects. The collaboration aims to provide European vehicle manufacturers with technologies and evaluation methods that support the development of open, safe, scalable, and product-oriented autonomous driving systems. Open software, shared evaluation methods and visible demonstrations will give organizations a common platform on which to test technologies, develop talent and advance autonomous mobility toward commercial and public use.

Supporting quotes

"Safe autonomous driving at scale requires progress across AI, system architecture, verification and deployment," said Shinpei Kato, founder and CEO of TIER IV. "By combining TUM's research capabilities with TIER IV's experience in developing and deploying Autoware, we aim to create technologies and open benchmarks that benefit the broader autonomous driving ecosystem. This collaboration also marks an important step toward advancing the open autonomous driving ecosystem in Europe, providing OEM manufacturers with technologies and evaluation methods that support the development of safe and scalable autonomous driving systems."

"At TUM, we are combining learning-based methods with traditional rule-based systems to make autonomous systems that can scale but are also verifiably safe, and actually deploying them in the real world. Our autonomous research platform EDGAR is built upon the open-source software stack Autoware, which provides a great baseline for autonomous driving research and education," said Johannes Betz, Professor of Autonomous Vehicle Systems, TUM.

About the Technical University of Munich

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of the world's leading universities in terms of research, teaching and innovation, with around 700 professorships, 52,000 students and 13,000 staff. TUM's range of subjects includes computer sciences, engineering, natural and life sciences, medicine, economics and social sciences. As an entrepreneurial university, TUM envisages itself as a global hub of knowledge exchange, open to society. Every year, around 100 start-ups are founded at TUM, which acts as a key player in Munich's high-tech ecosystem. The university is represented around the world by its TUM Asia campus in Singapore along with offices in Beijing, Brussels, Mumbai, San Francisco, São Paulo and Shenzhen. Nobel Prize laureates and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde and Rudolf Mößbauer have conducted research at TUM, which was awarded the title of University of Excellence in 2006, 2012, 2019 and 2026. International rankings regularly cite TUM as the best university in the European Union.

About TIER IV

TIER IV stands at the forefront of deep tech innovation, pioneering Autoware, open-source software for autonomous driving. With a comprehensive suite of platforms and services built around Autoware, TIER IV provides everything from software development and vehicle procurement to operational support. Through the Autoware ecosystem, TIER IV works with partners worldwide to shape the future of intelligent vehicles with open-source software, aiming to create mobility that is safer, more sustainable, and accessible to all.

Media contacts

TIER IV
[email protected]

Technical University of Munich
PR contact 
Mr. Moritz Müller [email protected]

*Autoware is a registered trademark of the Autoware Foundation.

SOURCE TIER IV, Inc.