Bosch is working with government and private stakeholders
The Move UK consortium, led by German industrial giant Bosch, said it has completed the first phase in its three-year research program, designed to accelerate the development of automated driving systems in the U.K.
The project, which is taking place in Greenwich, near London, has enabled the Move UK consortium to develop a new validation method that will reduce the time taken to test automated driving systems and bring them to market.
“Low carbon and self-driving vehicles are the future and the UK is determined to be one of the leaders in this technological revolution. Through our industrial strategy, the government is laying the foundations to ensure the UK seizes the opportunities presented by the development of our next generation of vehicles,” Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said.
“Government investment, through our Intelligent Mobility Fund, in the Move UK program is helping deliver this pioneering research into the ‘real world’ application of this technology. It is a collaboration between Government and industry that is building our expertise and reputation in self-driving technology and support our clean growth, low-carbon agenda.”
Bosch said that the project’s data is gathered from sensors installed on a fleet of Land Rover vehicles that have so far completed more than 48,000 of driving on public roads in Greenwich by council workers. As part of the new validation method, data is selected and recorded, which helps to reduce the total volume of data collected and speed-up validation of the automated driving functions.
The company also highlighted that the data is automatically transferred to a central cloud, allowing researchers to analyse it remotely. As a result, the consortium partners are able to analyse how automated driving functions respond in the real world, Bosch added.
Bosch also said that the next two phases of the project will see additional sensors added to the test vehicles, so by the end of the project the data gathered will be from full 360-degree surround sensing.
“The data collected is particularly valuable, as it is being generated through ‘real world’ driving, rather than from the test track. As the project’s lead partner, we are pleased that the new validation method being trialled takes us one step closer to fully autonomous driving and to our vision of accident-free and stress-free driving for the future.,” Arun Srinivasan, RVP and head of mobility solutions, Bosch UK said.
The consortium is led by Bosch and includes Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Jaguar Land Rover, Direct Line, the Royal Borough of Greenwich and The Floow. The initiative is jointly funded by the government and the industry.
