MOVE_UK: Consortium of automotive companies wins £5.5m fund to trial driverless cars on UK roads

Mon, Feb 01, 2016 11:30 CET

MOVE_UK consortium will develop automated driving systems in the UK
£5.5m project as part of Government's wider commitment to establish the UK as world leader in driverless car technology and implementation
Bosch leads consortium made up of companies from different aspects of the UK automotive industry

As announced today by the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, a consortium led by Bosch, will help position the UK as a world leader in automated and self-driving cars. Bosch takes a commanding role in the MOVE_UK project, which benefits from a £5.5 million grant awarded by InnovateUK and will see driverless technology trialled in real world conditions on roads in Greenwich, London.

The UK project partners include Bosch, the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Jaguar Land Rover, Direct Line Group, The Floow and the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Together, the partners will see MOVE_UK accelerate the entry of automated, driverless car technologies to the UK market. The project will increase the rate of development and testing of these technologies at a lower cost to vehicle manufacturers.

Automated technology in cars will help to prevent accidents, reduce congestion and emissions in cities, offering a more pleasant experience for motorists. However, automated driving is highly complex and requires a large amount of data, which needs extensive validation to ensure that systems respond to a wide range of real world driving situations.

During the three-year MOVE_UK project, driverless systems will be tested in the real world, providing large amounts of data that will be used to develop and improve the technology. This data will enable the development of new and faster ways of improving and demonstrating the safety of automated driving systems.

The information can provide smart cities with new ways to improve services for residents and look after the environment. It will also help the UK automotive industry understand how data from cars can be processed to benefit drivers, providing a real insight into how driverless technologies will change automotive businesses in the future.

Bosch, together with Jaguar Land Rover, will provide vehicles, technology and state-of-the-art design expertise to the project.

Arun Srinivasan, Head of UK Automotive Division with Bosch Original Equipment, commented: “We are excited to be the lead-partner of such a ground-breaking project. Bosch strives for excellence in all that it does and in leading the MOVE_UK consortium, Bosch will help to establish the UK as world leader in automated technology. The use of Bosch technology will help to speed up the launch of automated driving technologies, making the vision of injury and accident free driving a reality for everyone.”

Dr Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology, Jaguar Land Rover, said: “To successfully introduce autonomous cars, we actually need to focus more on the driver than ever before. Understanding how drivers react to a range of very dynamic and random situations in the real world is essential if we want drivers to embrace autonomous cars in the future.”

TRL will house and process the data captured, providing essential insight for future tests and informing any regulatory changes that will need to be made.

Rob Wallis, CEO of TRL, said: “TRL is building a strong, reputable portfolio of UK based projects in vehicle automation, and this is another great example of a ground-breaking project in this area. By creating a unique evidence base for automated driving systems, we will not only help to develop and speed up validation of these systems in the UK, but also guide future thinking around the development of virtual and physical testing approaches for years to come

Direct Line Group’s contribution to the project will help to bridge the gap between the automotive and insurance industries by providing crucial dialogue and reassessing the risk landscape for automated cars.

Paul Geddes, CEO at Direct Line Group, said: "As Britain's leading personal motor insurer, Direct Line Group is delighted to be part of this unique consortium. We recognise the increasingly important role played by automated and driverless systems in improving road safety. We also understand that DLG and the wider UK Insurance industry have a key role in enabling the deployment and adoption of these technologies on UK roads."

The Floow’s telematics will allow the consortium to compare the behaviour of the vehicle to that of a human driver in the same real world environment.

Sam Chapman, Chief Innovation Officer, at the Floow, said: “The Floow is an independent UK SME who supports the leading insurers of the world, serving their actuaries with the industry’s most advanced mobility understanding. It has the largest independent science team in the telematics industry; we push the data frontier, delivering proven predictive analytics and digital end-user services that transform insurance operations.”

The Royal Borough of Greenwich is the host local authority providing a smart city trial environment for the project. The borough is home to the UK’s Smart Mobility Living Lab - an open, real world, test environment for connected and automated vehicles.

Councillor Denise Hyland, Leader of Royal Borough of Greenwich, said: “The Royal Borough of Greenwich is delighted to be part of this ground breaking project and to be working alongside such innovative and prestigious UK companies. The choice of Greenwich to host MOVE_UK further consolidates Greenwich’s position as a living lab for smart mobility in the heart of the Capital, and a leader in smart city innovation. We look forward to gaining valuable insights into the operations of connected cars in the future, how they can help address the problems modern cities face and also how we can help accelerate their deployment capturing the benefits for the UK, London and Greenwich.”

Contact person for press inquiries:
Rianne Ojeh, 01895 838 822, Rianne.Ojeh@uk.bosch.com

Mobility Solutions is the largest Bosch Group business sector. In 2014, its sales came to 33.3 billion euros, or 68 percent of total group sales. This makes the Bosch Group one of the leading automotive suppliers. The Mobility Solutions business sector combines the group’s expertise in three mobility domains – automation, electrification, and connectivity – and offers its customers integrated mobility solutions. Its main areas of activity are injection technology and powertrain peripherals for internal-combustion engines, diverse solutions for powertrain electrification, vehicle safety systems, driver-assistance and automated functions, technology for user-friendly infotainment as well as vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, repair-shop concepts, and technology and services for the automotive aftermarket. Bosch has been responsible for important automotive innovations, such as electronic engine management, the ESP® anti-skid system, and common-rail diesel technology.

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 360,000 associates worldwide (as per April 1, 2015). The company generated sales of 49 billion euros in 2014.* Its operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 440 subsidiary and regional companies in some 60 countries. Including its sales and service partners, Bosch is represented in roughly 150 countries. This worldwide development, manufacturing, and sales network is the foundation for further growth. In 2014, Bosch applied for some 4,600 patents worldwide. The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to create solutions for a connected life. Bosch improves quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, Bosch creates technology that is “Invented for life.”

Additional information is available online at www.bosch.com, www.bosch-press.com, http://twitter.com/BoschPresse.

*The sales figure disclosed for 2014 does not include the former joint ventures BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH (now BSH Hausgeräte GmbH) and ZF Lenksysteme GmbH (now Robert Bosch Automotive Steering GmbH), which have since been taken over completely.