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

  • Motorists want ‘the right to drive’
    April 28, 2016
    More than 65 per cent of motorists want to retain the right to drive even though driverless cars are coming, according to new research released today by IAM RoadSmart – formerly the Institute of Advanced Motorists. IAM RoadSmart conducted an independent survey of 1,000 British motorists and a separate poll among its 92,000 members. Those 65 per cent of motorists believe that a human being should always be in control of the vehicle, with 53 per cent saying that the focus should be on making drivers safer – n
  • Aurora starts driverless delivery in Texas
    May 2, 2025
    Firm says it is first to operate commercial, self-drive heavy truck service in US
  • Traffic management: risky business
    June 15, 2023
    Adding a real-time accident risk layer to the profile of a road network ticks all the crucial boxes: it saves time, fuel, money and, ultimately, lives. Harriet King of Valerann explains the brain power of Lanternn by Valerann’s Core Fusion Engine...
  • Counting the environmental costs of ITS deployment
    October 29, 2015
    David Crawford looks at the latest thinking about calculating the benefits associated with the environmental side of ITS schemes. The penny is dropping that some environmental costs “are being shifted outside the traditional bounds of evaluation methods” for ITS-based road transport projects, according to researchers at the UK University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies.