Following the successful conclusion of the UK Autodrive pilot in Coventry and Milton Keynes, a series of demonstration days have been held to showcase the technology used in the programme.
This includes the roadside infrastructure which was supplied and installed by Siemens Mobility Limited for the Coventry phase of the trial. The company’s ESCoS roadside units (RSUs) provided the technical platform for vehicles and traffic signal equipment to communicate with each other in real time, with the RSUs sending data to equipped vehicles over short-range communications.
Speaking at one of the demonstration days, Gary Bray, Senior Product Manager, Sensors & Connected Mobility at Siemens Mobility, said: “With digitalisation, Siemens Mobility enables mobility operators to make infrastructure intelligent, improve passenger experience and enhance availability.
“We are delighted to provide connected mobility infrastructure for UK Autodrive, to have had the opportunity to test our systems in such a technically challenging live environment, and to showcase them today. The results of this trial build on our work with other connected mobility projects and will make a significant contribution to the further development of our products and systems”.
Featuring a series of increasingly complex trials, the programme provided an opportunity to test a number of areas of automated driving, as well as to demonstrate the potential of connected vehicles. For example, as the Siemens RSUs are connected to the traffic signals, the trial enabled the GLOSA (green light optimised speed advisory) system to be tested when a vehicle is connected to a traffic signal-controlled intersection.
GLOSA has been developed to improve safety, economy and emissions and its operation begins with the traffic signal timings being read from the controller. This is then broadcast by the RSU as a SPaT (signal phase and timing)/ MAP message, on receipt of which, the vehicle’s GLOSA system processes the data.
Based on the vehicle’s position, speed and heading, it then decides what to tell the driver about the signal time and status. This advice is presented to the driver via a human machine interface (HMI), in the form of a graphic, advising them either how to adjust their driving to ensure they pass through the junction on green, or to prepare to stop if the vehicle cannot make it safely to the stop-line before the signals turn red.
A £19.4 million government-funded programme, UK Autodrive is one of number of projects taking place across the UK to trial Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, helping to deliver the government’s vision of driverless cars operating on UK roads 2021.
(Image courtesy of Jaguar Land Rover)
