The GATEway project announces the next phase of driverless pod trials

Black driver less shuttle pod

The GATEway project is soon to launch its open public trial of driverless pods. These autonomous pods will provide first and last mile transportation around the Greenwich peninsula by connecting important transport hubs with business, leisure and residential locations.

The GATEway team is delighted to announce that for the next phase, commencing in the Autumn, Fusion Processing will provide sensing and control equipment on the brand new pods that are being built by Westfield Sportscars. The pods are based on the original Heathrow Airport platform pod design and have been updated for use in first and last mile transportation operational environments.

Simon Tong from TRL is the Technical Lead on the project and explains the new development, “GATEway has always been focused on exploring public perception and understanding of driverless vehicles. With Fusion joining the team, GATEway is in a unique position to let the public interact with three very different autonomous control systems during our urban trials. Each of our autonomy providers – Fusion Processing, Oxbotica and Gobotix – are great British success stories and together with Westfield they represent the diversity of driverless expertise in the UK.”

In April this year, the GATEway project provided over a hundred members of the public an opportunity to ride in the first prototype driverless pod in Greenwich powered by Oxbotica’s Selenium autonomous control system.

In the next phase of the project, using Fusion Processing’s autonomy system, the GATEway project intends to transport hundreds more people with a fleet of new Westfield pods based at the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Dr Graeme Smith, CEO of Oxbotica said “It was an amazing opportunity for us to step into the GATEway project and deploy our Selenium autonomy system into the prototype pod and demonstrate it so successfully in research trials conducted by the Royal College of Art and TRL. We wish Westfield and Fusion well as they take their product closer to a production phase”

Simon further states that, “This is a really exciting time for the project. We’re very grateful to Oxbotica for all they have contributed in helping us learn more about the complexities of operating a driverless pod in an urban environment. With Fusion we look to build on all we have learned for our fleet of new driverless pods so that GATEway can conclude with a trial that will engage as many people as possible and hopefully amaze them at the same time.”

This trial is one of a number of automated vehicle tests within the GATEway project investigating public acceptance of automated vehicles within the urban mobility landscape. Other trials in the project include last-mile automated deliveries (tested in June 2017) and autonomous valet parking (due to be tested later in 2017).

GATEway is jointly funded by government and industry. The government’s £100m Intelligent Mobility fund is administered by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and delivered by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

About the GATEway Projectgateway logo

GATEway (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) is an £8m research project, led by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), to understand and overcome the technical, legal and societal challenges of implementing automated vehicles in an urban environment.

Taking place in TRL’s UK Smart Mobility Lab in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, the project will trial and validate a series of different use cases for automated vehicles, including driverless shuttles and automated urban deliveries.

Results will help both industry and policymakers understand the implications of driverless vehicles and deliver a safe and validated test environment in the UK, driving job creation and investment in a rapidly emerging technology area.  See more at: www.gateway-project.org.uk

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