Called the DRIVEN consortium – and funded by an £8.6million grant from the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and Innovate UK – the 30 month project will deploy fully autonomous vehicles in urban areas and on motorways. The project will work towards an end-to-end journey from London to Oxford featuring vehicles operating with Level 4 autonomy. This means they have the ability to perform all safety-critical driving functions and to monitoring road conditions without passengers. According to the project, no connected and autonomous vehicle trial at this level of complexity and integration has yet been attempted anywhere.
Dr Graeme Smith, Oxbotica’s CEO, said: “No company, group or consortium of autonomy experts has attempted what DRIVEN is planning over the next 30 months. We are seeking to address some of the most fundamental challenges preventing the future commercial deployment of fully autonomous vehicles.”
The consortium will use six inter-communicating vehicles equipped with Oxbotica Selenium software, said to provide vehicles with awareness of its position and surroundings, allowing it to determine how to complete a task.
Other partners involved in the project include Oxford Robotics Institute, XL Catlin, Nominet, Telefonica O2 UK, TRL, the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s RACE, Oxfordshire County Council, Transport for London and Westbourne Communications.