Autonomous vehicles to ‘see’ around corners in new project

Project CORAM (Connected On-Road Autonomous Mobility) will research how ‘look-ahead’ and ‘non-line-of sight’ (NLOS) perception can be delivered to any connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) from infrastructure deployed sensors.

CORAM will leverage connectivity to deliver NLOS and look-ahead perception using low-latency over-the-air messaging to autonomous vehicles.
The project will undertake a feasibility study as part of the funding competition sponsored by Innovate UK and the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV).

The project’s lead is Propelmee, an autonomous vehicle technology company that is developing an operating system to enable full autonomy for self-driving cars. CORAM brings together CAV expertise, state of the art CAV testing facilities and the CAV assets of two eminent partners; the Transport Systems Catapult and Cranfield University.

The research compiled will develop infrastructure-based connectivity, enabling safer on-road autonomy. This will be demonstrated at Cranfield University’s state-of-the-art Multi-User Environment for Autonomous Vehicle Innovation (MUEAVI) research facility, using Transport System Catapult’s autonomous pods.

The partners will develop and research methods for achieving these technology goals, and for the efficient transmission of ‘NLOS’ perception over-the-air for utilisation by CAVs, whilst assessing the latency and bandwidth constraints of chosen communication protocols. The research outcomes of CORAM will support the creation of new message structures and communication protocols for CAVs, new use case concepts for connected on-road autonomy. It will also help advance the shared vehicle understanding that goes beyond current vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to location systems for coordinated autonomous driving.

Zain Khawaja, Founder & CEO of Propelmee, said: “Connectivity has a key role to play in autonomy, and infrastructure sensing has the potential to greatly aid and enable full autonomy, especially when on-vehicle sensing struggles to perceive location. Infrastructure can assist autonomy in urban city centres where there is a large density of pedestrians, buses, taxis, cyclists and complex and unpredictable driving scenarios often arise. CORAM consortium will take the first steps in developing a proof of concept of such a system and will help establish the groundwork for the UK to become a world-leader in connected infrastructure for fully autonomous mobility.”