Driverless vehicles to be trialled between Oxford and London in 2019
A fleet of driverless vehicles are set to take part in road trials between London and Oxford in 2019. The tests will be undertaken by the DRIVEN consortium, which is led by the Oxford-based AI company Oxbotica.
In a statement issued today (24 April), Oxbotica said: “The DRIVEN consortium – which benefits from a £8.6m grant awarded by Innovate UK – is an ambitious project that will see a fleet of fully autonomous vehicles being deployed in urban areas and on motorways, culminating in an end-to-end journey from London to Oxford.
“These vehicles will be operating at Level 4 autonomy – meaning they have the capability of performing all safety-critical driving functions and monitoring roadway conditions for an entire trip, with zero-passenger occupancy. No connected and autonomous vehicle trial at this level of complexity and integration has ever been attempted anywhere in the world.”
The vehicles will be not only autonomous, but also connected – which means that they will be able to share information about, for example, driving conditions and data from external sources.
Professor Paul Newman, Head of the Oxford Robotics Institute based at the University of Oxford, and one of Oxbotica’s founders, said: “DRIVEN is the first of its kind and brings a host of new questions surrounding the way these vehicles will communicate with each other. We’re moving from the singleton autonomous vehicle, to fleets of autonomous vehicles – and what’s interesting to us at the Oxford Robotics Institute is what data the vehicles share with one another, when, and why.”
The fleet of six inter-communicating vehicles will be equipped with Selenium, Oxbotica’s vehicle manufacturer (OEM) agnostic software.
Besides Oxbotica, other partners involved in the UK project include Oxford Robotics Institute, re/insurer XL Catlin, Nominet, Telefonica O2 UK, Transport Research Laboratory, the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s RACE, Oxfordshire County Council, Transport for London and Westbourne Communications.
