Jaguar Land Rover leads £11m autonomous cars project

The programme, which is being jointly funded by the carmaker and EPSRC, is aiming to address some of the fundamental challenges on the road to fully autonomous vehicles, including public safety concerns.

The research programme includes projects looking into radar and video sensing technologies, distributed control systems, and cloud computing. The projects will also investigate how drivers react to autonomous vehicles, and how the transition between human control and automated systems should best be managed.

The programme, called Towards Autonomy – Smart and Connected Control (TASCC), will be carried out at ten UK universities, as well as the Transport Research Laboratory.

The Pervasive low-Terahertz (THz) and Video Sensing for Car Autonomy and Driver Assistance project, for example, led by Dr Marina Gashinova at Birmingham University, will use low-THz sensors and advanced video analysis to develop a system capable of mapping a vehicle’s terrain and detecting vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians, even in bad weather. The system will also be capable of spotting hazards such as potholes and surface changes.