Abstract: A method for supporting autonomous driving of an autonomous vehicle includes detecting, by an in-vehicle internet-of-things (IoT) platform of the autonomous vehicle, a vulnerable road user (VRU) having a mobile device in a vicinity of the autonomous vehicle. A mobility application runs on the mobile device of the VRU and sends VRU-specific data to the in-vehicle IoT platform of the autonomous vehicle. The VRU is detected based on the VRU-specific data and/or in-vehicle sensor data of the autonomous vehicle. The method further includes determining, by the in-vehicle IoT platform, a movement intention prediction based on the VRU-specific data. The movement intention prediction is computed by use of a machine learning model. The VRU-specific data of the mobile device are provided as input data for the machine learning model. In addition, the method includes performing an autonomous driving decision for the autonomous vehicle based on the movement intention prediction.