South West companies receive Whitehall funding to advance self-driving vehicle technology

Published by

Giles Gwinnett

Companies and institutions in the South West are among those which have received UK government funding to help advance the technology surrounding self-driving vehicles.

The grants, totalling £18.5 million, are part of the government's Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) Commercialising Connected and Automated Mobility competition.

The funds will help 43 British companies across 13 projects develop self-driving technologies and products for the connected and automated mobility market.

Among the project winners is CERTUS, a collaboration between Nuneaton-based Horiba Mira, Coventry university, Connected Places Catapult, Polestar Automotive UK and Solihull-based IPG Automotive UK, which has been awarded £1.5 million.

CERTUS provides a toolset that helps to efficiently identify, define and execute test requirements for an automated driving system (ADS).

Elsewhere, AIM-DBW, which received £400,000, aims to deliver a universal and affordable drive-by-wire system to replace traditional mechanical linkages with electronic ones, namely enabling automation of the throttle, steering, braking, gears, and ancillary systems.

The partners in this project are Stoke-on-Trent based Aim Technologies, which is the lead, and Berkshire's TRL.

Another winner is the Autonomous Cargo project, which received £480,000, and which is focused on creating an autonomous dolly for airside cargo movement.

Coventry-based Aurrigo is leading the project and the partner is logistics giant UPS.

Meanwhile, Sim4CAMSens has received £2 million in grant funding and will develop a sensor evaluation framework that spans modeling, simulation, and physical testing for ADS sensors.

Partners include Leamington Spa-based Claytex Services (leading), the University of Warwick and Oxford RF Solutions.

The 'StreetCAV' project, receiving £1.8 million, is aimed at creating 'plug-and-play' roadside connectivity to enable self-driving shuttles and robotic and drone-based services to operate safely and securely.

The aim is to deploy StreetCAV and a new self-driving shuttle service into Milton Keynes, as a blueprint for the UK.

Partners are Smart City Consultancy, Dell Corporation, Milton Keynes borough council and autonomous vehicle tech firm Ohmio UK.

Whitehall wants the UK to start deploying commercially operating self-driving vehicles to improve ways in which people and goods are moved across the nation.

To turn this vision into reality, CCAV launched the Commercialising Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) programme to target early commercial self-driving vehicle opportunities and support the UK supply chain to grow and fill the technology gaps necessary.

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Giles Gwinnett

Giles Gwinnett is a writer at The Business Magazine. He has been a journalist for more than 20 years and covered a vast array of topics at a range of media settings - in print and online. After his NCTJ newspaper training, he became a reporter in Hampshire before moving to a news agency in Gloucestershire. In recent years, he has been covering the financial markets along with company news for an investor-focused web portal. His many interests include politics, energy and the environment. He lives in Dorset.