Plans have been announced for a new 'Smart City Mobility Centre', which will cement Coventry and Warwickshire’s position at the forefront of developing the driverless and electric cars of the future.
The first facility of its kind in Europe, the multi-million pound centre will be based at the University of Warwick’s Wellesbourne campus, with driverless cars being tested on the university’s main campus in Coventry.
The centre will create state-of-the-art vehicle platforms and integrated driverless capability to support the creation of smart cities.
These futuristic urban environments will see in-car technology combine with high-tech infrastructure to consign congestion, emissions and even road traffic accidents to history.
At the heart of the project is a partnership combining WMG at the University of Warwick’s research expertise and Jaguar Land Rover’s research and engineering capabilities.
Working together
Jaguar Land Rover engineers and WMG researchers will work together at Wellesbourne to design and engineer connected, driverless capable, prototype electric vehicle platforms.
These will be tested in real world conditions alongside a specially-designed 5G communications network on the University of Warwick’s main campus.
The new Smart City Mobility Centre will also draw on expertise in battery technology being developed by the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) nearby.
In addition the work the new centre carries out will benefit from a new £20million UK Mobility Data Institute being established by WMG in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
This facility will collect, process and analyse transport data generated by the advent of new mobility technologies such as driverless vehicles and smart charging for electric cars.
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