Cars that can see around corners

WMG at the University of Warwick is joining forces with Coventry car maker Jaguar Land Rover to develop futuristic cars that can see around corners and will have ‘X-ray’ vision.

The ambitious £4.7 million AutopleX project will enhance the capability of self-driving cars by developing vehicles that can ‘see’ around corners and through obstacles.

Jaguar Land Rover is leading the project to investigate pioneering safety technology for autonomous vehicles.

The Innovate UK funded project combines connected, automated and live mapping tech to allow self-driving cars to ‘see’ and ‘talk’ to each other.

Also on board with the project are Highways England, INRIX, Ricardo, Siemens, and Transport for West Midlands.

WMG’s role will see it bring scientific expertise in the area of connected autonomous driving systems, V2X systems, physical and virtual validation and cyber security.

Using their vehicle simulation facilities they will work with other partners to create insight prior to physical tests as well as post-trial impact assessment in scenarios that cannot be carried out in real world tests.

WMG will also advise the project team on cyber security aspects and assess the resilience of the AutopleX systems against potential cyberattack.

Professor Mehrdad Dianati, who will lead WMG’s work on the project, said: “While tremendous progresses have been made in development of autonomous driving systems, enabling autonomous vehicles to safely operate in complex environments is a crucial challenge toward realisation of fully autonomous cars.

“One promising paradigm is to augment vehicles on-board system through V2X technologies.

“AutopleX has an ambitious vision to address practical challenges of such approaches through real-world test as well as understanding their impacts on the vehicle function and road networks through virtual evaluations.”

Chris Holmes, connected and autonomous vehicle research manager at Jaguar Land Rover , said: “This project is a crucial step in bringing self-driving cars to our customers in the near future. Together with our AutopleX partners, we will merge our connected and autonomous research to empower our self-driving vehicles to operate safely in the most challenging, real-world traffic situations.

“This project will ensure that we will deliver the most sophisticated and capable automated driving technology.”