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

  • 15 nominees confirmed for Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award 2018
    January 30, 2018
    An international jury of transportation experts have shortlisted 15 candidates across the five categories: Infrastructure, Traffic Management, Safety, Parking and Smart Mobility for the Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Award 2018. The final winners will be announced at the opening ceremony of the three day event, which will take place from 20-23 March. Under Infrastructure, Saedi has been selected for its FlexLight Bollard, which is designed with the intention of combining the advantages of different kind
    Read More
  • Singapore unveils roadmap for self-driving vehicles
    October 15, 2015
    Singapore's Ministry of Transport (MOT) and Land Transport Authority (LTA) have unveiled plans to start trialling self-driving vehicles, claiming this is another step towards the country’s long-term vision of deploying self-driving vehicles and mobility concepts to enhance and complement its multi-modal land transport system. Self-driving vehicle trials have already commenced in a 200 hectare business park and are expected to start in another area in December. The tests will be carried out by the Institu
    Read More
  • UK Government announces funding for Smart Mobility Lab in London
    October 23, 2017
    A consortium led by TRL has been awarded £13.4 million ($10.1 million) of the UK government's £51 million ($38 million) Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) testbed funding to create a Smart Mobility Living Lab (SMLL) in Greenwich and nearby Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London. The funding is part of the £100 million ($75 million) UK CAV test bed competitive fund and is the first investment by government and industry through Meridian to develop a national CAV testing infrastructure.
    Read More
  • Dutch autonomous vehicle project to develop platooning
    December 1, 2015
    The i-CAVE (integrated Cooperative Automated Vehicles) research program, led by Prof. Dr H. Nijmeijer of the Technical University of Eindhoven and funded through a recently awarded grant of US$4.2 million, aims to develop vehicles that can run both autonomously on dedicated roads or cooperatively on public roads. i-CAVE focuses on all important aspects involved in the development of such dual mode systems. Other participants include Delft University of Technology and University of Twente, 2getthere, DAF
    Read More

Highlighted Content