The future of driving, or more precisely, of learning to drive, is at the core of Sapios’ work. The company has developed an Automated Road Test System (ARTS) that replaces traditional human driving examiners with an intelligent, data-driven evaluation. “We currently offer a system that runs on an iPhone and is mounted on the dashboard in the car,” explains Prof. Achim Lilienthal, Head of Research and Industrial Collaborations at Sapios and Deputy Director of TUM MIRMI. “The phone effectively becomes the driving examiner. It gives instructions, evaluates driving behavior, and ultimately decides whether the driving test is passed.”

The technology achieves a 97% agreement with human examiners, with so far 0% false positives—meaning there are no cases in which a test is incorrectly marked as passed. Sapios, formerly known as QTPIE, is thus addressing a practice that has remained largely unchanged for over 100 years. The central challenge lies in the complexity and variability of real-world driving environments. The developed system must handle a wide range of driving styles and traffic situations while consistently delivering reliable assessments. The training on real-world data, particularly from numerous real driving test situations with examiners from the U.S. driver licensing authority (Department of Motor Vehicles, DMV) in Virginia, is essential to achieving a high degree of agreement with human examiners.

The nomination (or win) for the Edison Award reflects how Sapios is contributing to societal progress. “We are revolutionizing the driving test,” emphasizes Lilienthal. “We are making driver licensing more objective and more affordable.” In doing so, the company addresses a key challenge in modern societies: the inefficient and subjective evaluation of driving skills.

Sapios’ technology also has potential applications beyond driving tests. “We have nine different application areas,” says Lilienthal. “We are also looking at the process of learning to drive, with the long-term goal of eliminating the need for a separate test altogether. In addition, we have already begun to explore potential applications in the healthcare and rehabilitation sectors from a scientific perspective.” The company’s vision for the future is ambitious: “In ten years, we want to be the global standard for driving tests,” says CEO Ravi Teja Chadalavada.

Through its close connection with TUM MIRMI and the Technical University of Munich, Sapios is developing technology that has the potential not only to succeed commercially, but also to address real societal challenges.

Text: Sarra Chaouch-Şimşek