Coventry and Milton Keynes complete three days of autonomous vehicle demonstrations

The trials involved collaboration between three global car manufacturers, the use of CAVs in complex urban environments and an international CAV conference, which will take place on 11 October. Passengers tested driverless pods designed to cut traffic, autonomous cars and connected vehicles, which can sense potential dangers and reduce journey times.

The UK Autodrive project is the largest of three projects to have emerged from the UK government’s ‘Introducing Driverless Cars’ competition in 2015, which had the aim of establishing the UK as a global hub for the development of autonomous vehicle technologies. The project has investigated a number of aspects relating to automated driving – including safety and cybersecurity, legal and insurance issues, public acceptance and customer interaction, and the potential business models for the widespread use of autonomous driving systems.

Some of the connected car features that UK Autodrive has been trialling include:

On the day of the trial, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors spoke to IET Transport about current and future advancements in vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and also offered in-car demonstrations of various autonomous and connected features.