Manchester’s bumper project

Engineers at The University of Manchester have developed an extendable car bumper that could help speed along the arrival of computer-controlled motorways.

They described the system in a paper presented at the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress and Exhibition, winning the authors, from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the Best Scientific Paper award.

Automated Highway Systems (AHS) and Co-operative Vehicle Highway Systems (CVHS) have been under development for many decades. CVHS promotes a vision that vehicles would not be independently driven, but regulated and controlled via information beamed from transmitters at the side of the road. Cars would also communicate and co-operate with the vehicles around them to ensure a safe and fast journey for everyone.

With the use of UK motorway space estimated to be as little as five per cent, the grouping or ‘platooning’ of cars is seen as one way to increase capacity and reduce congestion. As computer-controlled vehicles would be able to travel much closer together, it would mean less fuel consumption due to a reduction in aerodynamic drag.