Skip to main content

Jaguar Land Rover to begin real-world tests of CAV technologies

Jaguar Land Rover plans to create a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles over the next four years, to develop and test a wide range of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies. The first of these research cars will be driven on a new 41 mile test route on UK motorways and urban roads around Coventry and Solihull later this year. The initial tests will involve vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other and roadsid
July 18, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
7998 Jaguar Land Rover plans to create a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles over the next four years, to develop and test a wide range of connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies. The first of these research cars will be driven on a new 41 mile test route on UK motorways and urban roads around Coventry and Solihull later this year.

The initial tests will involve vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other and roadside signs, overhead gantries and traffic lights. Ultimately, data sharing between vehicles would allow future connected cars to co-operate and work together to assist the driver and make lane changing and crossing junctions easier and safer.

Technologies being used include Roadwork Assist, which uses a forward-facing stereo camera to generate a 3D view of the road ahead and together with advanced image processing software, it can recognise cones and barriers. The system will sense when the vehicle is approaching the start of the roadworks, identify an ideal path through complicated construction sites and contraflows and inform the driver that the road is narrowing ahead. The system will then apply a small amount of steering assistance to the wheel to help the driver remain centred in lane.

Safe Pullaway identifies when the vehicle is getting too close to the vehicle in front in traffic jams or when entering junctions. It uses the stereo camera to monitor the area immediately in front of the vehicle and automatically applies the brakes if objects such as vehicles or walls are detected.

Over the Horizon Warning is part of a research project testing devices that use radio signals to transmit relevant data from vehicle to vehicle to warn drivers and autonomous cars of hazards and obstacles over the horizon or around blind bends.

Emergency Vehicle Warning allows connected emergency vehicles to communicate with other vehicles on the road: a device in the emergency vehicle would broadcast that it is approaching. Drivers would receive an audible warning along with a visual alert telling them the direction the emergency vehicle is coming from and how far away it is.

Related Content

  • October 17, 2019
    Getting C/AVs from pipedream to reality
    The UK government has suggested that driverless cars could be on the roads by 2021. But designers and engineers are grappling with a number of difficult issues, muses Chris Hayhurst of MathWorks Earlier this year, the UK government made the bold statement that by 2021, driverless cars will be on the UK’s roads. But is this an achievable reality? Driverless technology already has its use cases on our roads, with levels of autonomy ranked on a scale. At one end of the spectrum, level 1 is defined by th
  • July 23, 2012
    Radar effective as detection tool for hard shoulder running
    Navtech Radar's millimetric-wave systems are being researched on the M42 in England to look into how this type of detector can assist in the opening of the hard shoulder as an additional running lane. Here, the company's Stephen Clark talks about the technology being used. In England, the Highways Agency's (the HA, an executive agency of the Department for Transport) Managed Motorways system - formerly called Active Traffic Management - uses electronic signs and signals mounted on gantries to direct drivers
  • November 30, 2012
    Taking it to the streets
    The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and US Department of Transportation (USDOT) have launched the Connected Vehicle Safety Pilot Model Deployment in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The largest connected vehicle test undertaken, and a critical next step in the development of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. The pilot, a $22 million partnership between UMTRI and USDOT, is part of a joint research initiative led by the National Highway Traffic
  • October 10, 2018
    Just Zip it! Lindsay takes to the road
    Greater vehicle connectivity is going to have huge implications for traffic management. David Arminas climbed aboard a Lindsay Road Zipper to see what this might mean in future As vice president of barrier specialist QMB Canada, Marc-Andre Seguin is sanguine about the future for moveable barriers. On the one hand, it looks good. The oft-stated advantage of moveable barriers is that the systems are cheaper to install than adding a lane or two to a highway or bridge. Directional changes to lanes can boost