A collaboration project involving Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult is helping to make autonomous vehicles safer for passengers by testing state-of-the-art sensors in adverse weather conditions.
Vehicle sensors maintain the safety of a car and the people within it, and monitor a wide range of conditions, such as temperature, CO2 emission levels and speed.
The autonomous car market was valued at $1.55 trillion in 2022 and is anticipated to achieve a growth rate of 10.3% from 2023 to 2032, because of increased emphasis on vehicle safety and efficiency.
The £2m industry wide project, Simulation for Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Sensing (Sim4CAMSens), includes Claytex, rFpro, Syselek, Oxford RF, the University of Warwick (WMG), National Physical Laboratory, CSA Catapult, and AESIN.
The project will test autonomous vehicle sensors in a range of harsh environments such as adverse weather conditions.
The tests will provide real-world data to improve the performance of future autonomous vehicle sensors, ensuring they are accurate, reliable and robust.
CSA Catapult’s role will be to analyse, characterise and build data that shows the vehicle’s internal and external noise factors. This will develop a more accurate the overall performance of the sensor.
The project is funded by the Centre for Connected and Automated Vehicles, a collaboration between the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the Department for Transport (DfT) and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK and Zenzic.
The project will finish in June 2025 with the aim of developing a UK supply chain to have more expertise in this field.
Head of Photonics at CSA Catapult, Joe Gannicliffe, said: “We’re delighted to be working with the consortium on the Sim4CAMSens project. Autonomous vehicles will require reliable sensors that can be used in adverse weather. By creating more accurate tests during its development phase, autonomous vehicle sensors will be able to react and respond to the environment around them. We look forward to working on this project to aid the development of future autonomous vehicle sensors.”
