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

  • February 19, 2016
    UK smart mobility living lab launched in London
    UK transport consultancy, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), has launched the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab @ Greenwich; a real-life environment where connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), services and processes can be safely developed, evaluated and integrated within the local community. Based in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London and supported by UK government, the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab @ Greenwich helps organisations bring solutions to market faster by enabling them to be trialled a
  • April 16, 2019
    5G or not 5G?
    Just a few years ago, there was only one solution in terms of communications protocols for delivering vehicle connectivity. Now, road operators and vehicle manufacturers face choices – including a moral choice, perhaps. Jason Barnes looks at the current state of play There is a debate raging in the ITS world over future communications protocols. Asfinag, Austria’s national strategic road operator, has announced it will from 2020 be using ITS-G5 to support cooperative ITS (C-ITS) applications (‘First thin
  • August 6, 2019
    ITS European Congress: safer and cleaner mobility
    Smart mobility and the increasing digitalisation of transport were among the main themes of this year’s ITS European Congress in the Netherlands. Ben Spencer picks some highlights from conference sessions which considered possible future developments Navigating between the Evoluon conference centre - a former science museum that resembles a giant-sized UFO - and an automotive campus, there was a lot to see at the 13th ITS European Congress in Brainport, Eindhoven. Organised by Ertico – ITS Europe and th
  • December 3, 2018
    Panasonic in Colorado: Rocky mountain way
    Panasonic is at the heart of a C-V2X project which began last year in Colorado. The company’s smart mobility boss Chris Armstrong tells Adam Hill how it is working out Colorado needs traffic and transport solutions – and fast. The US state’s population has grown 50% in the last 20 years and another 50% hike is predicted in the next 20. It also spends more than $13 billion in roadway crash costs each year. In 2015, 546 people died in traffic-related crashes, and more than 3,000 were seriously injured.