The Safety First! road safety competition, organized by the Department of Automotive Technologies at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, has reached another milestone this year. Following the first round, the field of advancing teams has been established, and participants are now moving forward with the detailed development of their concepts.

Once again, competitors are addressing current, industry-relevant challenges with innovative solutions. The topics cover a wide spectrum of vehicle safety, ranging from driver monitoring systems and vehicle dynamics to artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Advancing teams and their topics:

• OrbitDMS
  Modelling Multi-Sensor Fusion for Driver Monitoring System for takeover readiness

• Squadron
  Reinforcement Learning Based Oversteer Control Under Dynamically Changing Adhesion

• secUred 2.0
  “Advanced braking system performance and power consumption analysis”

• SafeSyncro
  A Multi-Layered, Proactive Cybersecurity Framework for Software-Defined Vehicles

• NOVA
  Neural Optimization for Verified Automotive Safety

The diversity of the field reflects the complexity of the modern automotive industry: alongside classical vehicle dynamics problems, software-defined systems, automation, and cybersecurity are playing an increasingly prominent role.

The next milestone of the competition will take place on May 8, 2026, when participants are required to submit a detailed 6–10 page technical report. At this stage, teams must go beyond their initial ideas and present the technical foundations, applicability, and—where relevant—model-based validation of their concepts.

“The key to the second round is depth: this is where it becomes clear whether a good idea can evolve into a well-founded engineering concept. Teams need to think not only creatively but also at a system level—this is the point where the competition truly approaches real industrial development processes,” emphasized Tamás Kazár, main organizer of the competition.

The Safety First! competition continues to provide a unique platform for students to develop their ideas along real engineering challenges, supported by both academic and industrial expertise. Throughout the process, participants acquire skills that are directly applicable to future challenges in the automotive industry.

In the coming weeks, the focus shifts to intensive development work behind the scenes—leading up to the final round, where the most promising concepts will once again be presented as tangible, working solutions.