Skip to main content

Loughborough University to develop test bed for connected /AVs

Loughborough University, the academic partner to London’s Smart Mobility Lab, has been awarded £500,000 ($676,000) as part of the project to develop a research programme enabling a real-world test bed for connected and autonomous vehicles. It will conduct research and development into connected roads, alongside other contributions including a vehicle fleet for experimental purposes; cooperative intersection management systems; high accuracy GPS; 5G and large-scale vehicle to anything communication capabilit
December 1, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

2223 Loughborough University, the academic partner to London’s Smart Mobility Lab, has been awarded £500,000 ($676,000) as part of the project to develop a research programme enabling a real-world test bed for connected and autonomous vehicles. It will conduct research and development into connected roads, alongside other contributions including a vehicle fleet for experimental purposes; cooperative intersection management systems; high accuracy GPS; 5G and large-scale vehicle to anything communication capability and; a high-performance data capture and analysis system.

The test bed will have a range of facilities including connected and instrumented road infrastructure, mule vehicles for new automation systems, private networks and mobility data capture, 5G and DCRS connectivity and more specialist research equipment.

Scheduled to open Spring 2019, The Smart Mobility Lab, a £13.4 million ($18.1 million) initiative, is said to enable companies to trial ideas, technology and services within complex public environments, and allow them to develop new vehicle systems and big city transport applications. It is based in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London.

Professor Pete Thomas, of the Design School, who is leading Loughborough’s involvement said: “We will be developing a new research programme that takes advantage of the facilities and the rapidly developing mobility environment. Companies such as Ford will be increasing their presence at Here East (LUL) [Loughborough University London] to take advantage of the teaching, research and innovation facilities.

“We will also be working with industry, both large and SME, to identify educational and CPD needs.

“In addition, there will be specific research equipment to meet existing LU [Loughborough University] needs while researchers will be able to access the much wider range of equipment in the Living Lab – including roadside, data, communications and vehicles.”

Related Content

  • October 23, 2017
    UK Government announces funding for Smart Mobility Lab in London
    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.
  • December 10, 2018
    UK’s Loughborough University attempts to smooth Europe’s path to C/AVs
    Loughborough University in the UK is leading a three-year initiative which aims to assess the impact of introducing connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) in Europe. The £5.7m project, called Levitate, is funded by the European Union and will help European cities to plan for the effect C/AVs will have on infrastructure and society. Levitate began this month and will consider how AVs might improve safety, congestion and the environment, while looking at key policy decisions which would maximise thei
  • February 20, 2023
    ServCity AV project reaches final test
    Three-year initiative in London has aimed to demonstrate practicalities of urban robotaxis
  • December 4, 2014
    Global navigation reference point to test zero emission driverless vehicles
    A successful consortium led by the UK’s Transport research Laboratory (TRL) has been selected by Innovate UK to deliver the GATEway project (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment), one of three projects awarded to test driverless vehicles in UK urban locations. The US$12.5 million project will see three trials of different types of zero emission automated vehicles within an innovative, technology-agnostic testing environment set in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The ‘prime meridian’ was establi