Skip to main content

UK researchers developing 3D 'black box' technology for vehicles

UK-based Roke Manor Research (Roke) has developed, with the help of funding from Innovate UK, what it says is the world's first viable 3D 'black box' technology for vehicles, using a single dashboard camera.
August 10, 2016 Read time: 1 min

UK-based 496 Roke Manor Research (Roke) has developed, with the help of funding from Innovate UK, what it says is the world's first viable 3D 'black box' technology for vehicles, using a single dashboard camera.

Roke demonstrated how, by using vision processing, the captured data could be used to provide a precise 3D reconstruction following a road incident. Roke believes it is set to offer insurers, drivers and even autonomous vehicle manufacturers, independent evidence of what happened and will not just lead to safer vehicles but also help to build public trust in driverless vehicles.

According to Dr James Revell, consultant engineer at Roke, the technology uses computer vision algorithms to enable the precise position and orientation of any vehicle - car, bike, lorry or autonomous vehicle. This allows for near-perfect 3D reconstruction of any accident to be created even if the vehicle loses complete control.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Simplifying enforcement systems type approval
    August 1, 2012
    Martyn Harriss looks at what we can do to simplify the type approval of enforcement equipment in Europe. I doubt that there are many who can remember the days when policemen hid in the bushes with stopwatches and flags to catch speeding motorists - and I'd suggest that back then there were few who were caught who would have dared question the accuracy of those watches or those who operated them. Probably, fewer still here in Europe could have dreamt that a supranational body such as the European Union (EU)
  • Truck camera technology trial hailed a success
    November 26, 2014
    A three-month trial of 360-degree camera technology carried out by Brigade Electronics and Continental has been hailed a success by the two companies. Said to be the first trial of the technology on a fleet of large articulated heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), the project used the Brigade Backeye360 Elite system with Continental’s powerful ASL360 camera system on a fleet of rigid and articulated HGVs owned by UK retailer Marks and Spencer. Backeye360 Elite uses four ultra-wide angle camera lenses mounted
  • New analysis finds speed cameras may create bad driving behaviour
    October 28, 2015
    Using more than one billion miles of driving behaviour data, collected over three years (2011-2014) and including 8,809 separate journeys in 5,353 vehicles, Wunelli, a LexisNexis company, has revealed the most frequent braking black spots across the UK created by speed cameras, based on motorists braking excessively just before speed cameras to avoid being caught. Eighty per cent of all the UK speed cameras investigated had hard braking activity, with braking increasing six fold on average at these loca
  • Managing congestion, better information changes perceptions
    January 31, 2012
    Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.