• Investigating how to manage the transition to autonomous vehicles

• Researchers to ask how machine and human intelligence can be combined

• Jaguar Land Rover and EPSRC fund £2m University of Warwick research

The problems surrounding the introduction of autonomous vehicles on public roads are to be addressed by new research led by the University of Warwick.

Despite progress in recent years the researchers argue that there are many unsolved challenges, not least related to how such cars will be accepted by the public.

Led by Dr Nathan Griffiths, a Royal Society Industry Fellow in the University of Warwick’s Department of Computer Science, who says that:

“The move to autonomous vehicles is most significant transition in motoring for a century, involving the complex tasks inherent to driving becoming increasingly performed by machine. Individual drivers and their cars will form part of wider and smarter urban transport infrastructure, and the cars of the future will need to be both intelligent and cooperative”.

Dr Griffiths and his co-researchers will investigate:

• How to combine machine and human intelligence to optimise driving

• How to manage the traffic environment through the use of big data

• How to coordinate and control autonomous vehicles on public roads

The opportunities to deliver better safety, traffic efficiency, and more productive and pleasant journeys are enormous, but an automotive revolution on this scale faces great challenges for science and society, argue the Warwick researchers.

There has been little prior research on how autonomous vehicles will fit in with today's manually driven cars, how drivers and occupants will interact with them and how they will run safely in our towns, with pedestrians and cyclists.

The research project began following the launch of strategic partnership between Jaguar Land Rover and the EPSRC, who issued a joint call for research proposals that focussed on developing fully autonomous cars: Towards Autonomy - Smart and Connected Control. Dr Griffiths’ project is one of five selected and Jaguar Land Rover will be leading the collaboration with these successful research groups.

23 November 2015

Contact: Tom Frew - International Press Officer, University of Warwick

E: a dot t dot frew at warwick dot ac dot uk

T: +44(0)7785433155