Jaguar Land Rover and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have set out their plans for a driverless car research project, worth 11 million.
The study will investigate whether autonomous cars can fully operate without input from humans, how integrated technologies such as distributed control systems and cloud computing can be used in the vehicles and how they will interact with humans and the environment around them.
Ten universities around the country will be involved in the research, alongside the new Transport Research Laboratory set up by the government and announced by secretary of state for business, Sajid Javid.
Javid explained that research into driverless vehicles is something the government plans to be heavily involved in, with the department of Business, Innovation and Skills taking the lead where the authorities are concerned.
"The UK Government has no intention of being a passenger in innovation so is pioneering autonomous car technology in partnership with industry," Javid said. "This 11 million research and development programme and the winning projects are a perfect example of this and will help to keep us at the forefront of the robotics revolution."
Jaguar Land Rover has selected five research proposals focussed on developing fully autonomous cars, with which it will collaborate in order to develop best-in-class technologies for the future.
"To realise the future potential for fully autonomous vehicles, we need to give drivers, pedestrians and other road users the confidence that a car driving around with little or no human input is a safe, viable and rewarding experience," Dr Wolfgang Epple, director of research and technology at Jaguar Land Rover, said.
"These collaborative projects will bring some of the UK's leading academics together with our autonomous driving team to address the fundamental real-world challenges that are part of our journey towards autonomous driving."
Last week, Toyota became the latest car manufacturer to announce trials with driverless vehicles, adding to the long list of companies involved including Google and Ford.
(Image Credit: The Car Spy, Flickr)
