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Innovate UK Programme Supports EVIE’s Vehicle-Agnostic Technology Heritage
A £280,668 Innovate UK-funded programme developing an affordable and universal Advanced Driver Assistance System has contributed to the vehicle-agnostic engineering heritage behind EVIE Autonomous.
The UADAS project focused on creating a Level 2-compliant Advanced Driver Assistance System for specialist and low-volume vehicle manufacturers.
The programme was formally led by AIM Technologies and addressed a major problem facing smaller manufacturers: how to introduce advanced safety and driver-assistance functions without carrying the development costs associated with systems created for millions of vehicles.
Making Advanced Technology Accessible
Low-volume vehicle manufacturers face many of the same regulatory and safety requirements as the world’s largest automotive groups, but must recover their development expenditure across significantly fewer vehicles.
The UADAS programme investigated a transferable, hardware-independent system capable of supporting functions such as:
- Lane-departure monitoring
- Active controlled braking
- Object and hazard detection
- Vehicle-control assistance
- More advanced automated-driving functions
The objective was to produce a TRL6 vehicle-agnostic platform that could be adapted for different specialist manufacturers and vehicle architectures.
The public project record identified interest from manufacturers including Ariel, Watt Electric Vehicle Company, Noble and Morris Commercial. The technical feasibility programme included proposed integration and testing with Ariel and Watt Electric Vehicle platforms.
Steven Lake, Founder and CEO of EVIE Autonomous, said:
“The automotive industry traditionally develops intelligent systems around one vehicle or one model range. That approach is extremely expensive and makes advanced technology difficult for smaller manufacturers to adopt.
“UADAS explored how common intelligence could be transferred between different vehicles. That same principle sits at the heart of EVIE today: one core autonomous platform, configured for many different machines, industries and operating environments.”
The Foundations of a Transferable Autonomy Platform
The work undertaken through UADAS helped develop experience in sensor integration, machine perception, electronic vehicle control and vehicle-independent software architecture.
EVIE has continued to build upon these principles through ARLO, its autonomous intelligence platform.
Where UADAS focused principally on driver assistance, ARLO is being developed to allow machines to perceive their surroundings, determine their position, plan movements and perform defined tasks autonomously.
The completed project demonstrates that EVIE’s approach is built upon several years of funded engineering development, practical integration and collaboration with established British vehicle manufacturers.