GSSI partners with MIT Lincoln Laboratory to develop LGPR for autonomous vehicles

US-based Geophysical Survey Systems (GSSI), manufacturer of ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment, has entered into a licensing agreement with Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory to build and sell commercial prototypes of their localised ground penetrating radar (LGPR) system, which helps autonomous vehicles navigate by using subsurface geology. The partnership will make prototype systems available to the self-driving vehicle industry.
September 11, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
US-based Geophysical Survey Systems (GSSI), manufacturer of ground penetrating radar (GPR) equipment, has entered into a licensing agreement with 2024 Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory to build and sell commercial prototypes of their localised ground penetrating radar (LGPR) system, which helps autonomous vehicles navigate by using subsurface geology. The partnership will make prototype systems available to the self-driving vehicle industry.

 
The agreement builds on GSSI’s new engineering initiative, which focuses on using GPR to solve difficult problems that cannot be solved with any other technologies. Led by newly appointed Vice President of Research and Development, David Cist, an expert engineering team is focusing on commercialising the new technology.
 
Engineers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, who developed LGPR, have demonstrated that features in soil layers, rocks, and road bedding can be used to localize vehicles to centimetre-level accuracy. The LGPR technology has been tested for lane keeping even when snow, fog, or dust obscures above-ground features.
 
The LGPR sensor uses high-frequency radar reflections of underground features to generate a baseline map of a road's subsurface. Whenever an LGPR vehicle drives along a road, the data can be used as a reference map. On subsequent passes the LGPR equipped vehicle compares its current map against the reference map to create an estimate of the vehicle's location. This localisation has been demonstrated to be accurate to within a few centimetres, in real-time and at highway speeds, even at night in snow-storms.

Location Based Systems Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision Classification & Data Collection

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Toyota Research Institute boosts autonomous vehicle development team
    March 11, 2016
    Toyota Research Institute (TRI), which is developing which is artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, has hired the software engineering team of Massachusetts-based Jaybridge Robotics, which has focused on reliable automation of industrial vehicles, working with partners across a range of industrial applications including agriculture, mining, marine, and rail. The former Jaybridge team has joined TRI's Cambridge, Massachusetts, facility. Like everyone else at TRI, they will be working closely wi
    Read More
  • The downside of driverless vehicles
    October 27, 2016
    Driverless cars will have a detrimental effect on congestion and security while the road safety benefits can be achieved sooner and cheaper using ADAS, argues Colin Sowman. Many Governments are consulting about the introduction of driverless vehicles and even running trials. As 70% or 80% of crashes are caused by human error, the promise of a crash-free future of driverless, self-driving or autonomous vehicles (call them what you will) is alluring, as are the claims of reduced congestion and lower emissions
    Read More
  • Europe's electronic toll service closer to operational reality
    November 7, 2012
    After much debate and delay, a unifying European Electronic Toll Service is now finally on the horizon, says ASFiNAG’s Klaus Schierhackl. Here, he talks with Jason Barnes about what that might mean. Aworkable European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) which will allow truck drivers to travel across the continent and pay tolls using a single account and OnBoard Unit (OBU) was originally timetabled to be in place and operating by October of this year. A lack of urgency from some of the stakeholders involved in t
    Read More
  • Where is tolling tech taking us?
    September 25, 2019
    From DSRC and RFID to GNSS or smartphones – which technology is ‘best’ for tolls, charging and pricing schemes? In the first of two articles, Josef Czako examines the options
    Read More

Highlighted Content