Successful completion of ‘GPR for localisation of Autonomous Vehicles’ Feasibility Study
At the end of January, Technics and collaboration partner University of Surrey (Dept. of Automotive Engineering) successfully completed an Innovate UK funded feasibility study on the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) for accurately locating Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV’s).
The project objectives and proof of concept were achieved and shown at a demonstration event held at Surrey Research Park on 23rd January, when a group of interested parties in the CAV sector were shown the processing capability of an intelligent algorithm which can compare GPS and GPR data sets in order to calculate the accurate location of a vehicle.
During a 5-month programme (commencing 1st September 2018), the following project activities took place, amongst others:
- Initial data gathering (topographical and GPR) at the project site (an 800m length of spine road at Surrey Research Park)
- Software development (within the requirements of the project)
- 7 Technical Review meetings
- 3 Localisation trials
- 4 Advisory Panel meetings
- Demonstration event to interested parties
As well as Innovate UK, Technics and University of Surrey would like to thank Advisory Panel members Jaguar Land Rover (Vehicle Capability Research) and Ordnance Survey for their invaluable input, all of the attendees at the demonstration event, and also Surrey Research Park for allowing the various surveys and trials to take place on their site.
Given the success of the project, the team are now formulating plans for future project stages, and these will be publicised in due course.
