Public Funding for Bsi Assurance UK Limited

To develop and commercialise a product and process assurance scheme for sustainable/low carbon additive manufacturing in construction. This will widen uptake of additive manufacturing, currently held back as no assurance schemes exist globally.

This project will take a crucial step towards enabling fully driverless autonomy - the removal of all human operators from an autonomous vehicle. Full autonomy (SAE Level 4/5), both technically and commercially, necessitates driverless operation without constant human supervision. This project aims to tackle the complex transitory step from the current reliance during field trials on an in-vehicle safety driver to fully remote operation where there is no vehicle occupant. It will build the foundations of fully autonomous operations in public environments, specifically in the domain of autonomous goods delivery. The project will be led by Oxbotica, whose innovative autonomy software has been extensively trialled on the streets of Birmingham, Oxford and London in previous Innovate UK projects. Our consortium also includes TRL, a global centre for innovation in surface transport and mobility, BSi, the leading UK national standards body, and UKAEA-RACE, a CCAV test bed in Culham, Oxfordshire, with which Oxbotica has a longstanding relationship. The project continues a successful partnership between these entities and introduces Ocado Group, UK based pioneering online grocery technology company, as a future AV fleet operator. The project has two essential paths of innovation - technical and safety assurance. These paths are of equal importance, both in achieving fully remote operation and in ensuring equivalent functional and operational safety. On the technical path, Oxbotica will be developing brand new redundant monitoring and fallback capabilities, which will allow an autonomous vehicle to run without real-time human supervision. On the safety assurance path, Oxbotica and its partners will develop new operational and safety assurance processes that will enable fully autonomous trials to be conducted. Oxbotica holds the distinction of being the first organisation to be audited against vehicle autonomy safety standard PAS1881, and will also refine its existing PAS1881-based safety case to address the removal of the safety driver, and the systems safety questions this introduces. With this project, Oxbotica and its industry-leading partners aim to continue their extensive history of technical achievement and industry-leading safety assurance mechanisms, and to take those first crucial steps towards true vehicle autonomy.

"Project Apollo will deliver a new mobility service: autonomous ride-sharing vehicles in the London Borough of Greenwich. This service is for residents or workers in areas which are poorly served by existing public transport and driven services. The Apollo pilot will be led by Addison Lee, Britain's largest-scale and most trusted private-hire operator, which carries 10million passenger a year in 350 cities around the world. The consortium includes Oxbotica, which has clocked up more autonomous vehicle miles than any other company in Britain, Nominet which is a world-leader in cybersecurity, Immense which is the UK's expert in fleet simulation and DG Cities, which brings the essential understanding of city needs. Apollo's pilot will be the largest in Europe, operating over 12 months with a fleet of 15 Ford vehicles, capable of SAE Level 4\. The aim is to carry out 25,000 passenger trips, covering 300 million kms and prepare to launch a service which is viable commercially, for customers and for the city. Once tried and tested in London, the full-scale CAV passenger service will be rolled-out to other UK cities and exported. Combining the UKs largest-scale service provider with the leading developer of autonomous technology and strong city leadership, means Apollo will be able to create a service with excellent customer experience, which connects people in transport-poor areas. The on-demand ride-sharing service will be affordable and inclusive, and will be demand-led -- with an ability to flex the area covered, dependent on customer needs. Autonomous ride-sharing offers multiple advantages. The ""sharing"" aspect helps tackle congestion by incentivising people out of private cars. Electrification means that the service will be environmentally sustainable. And by addressing an existing transport need current driven modes do not address, the project will contribute to social inclusion and economic regeneration. As well as informing potential service operators, this project will aim to inform regulators and policy makers as they deliver the Future of Mobility vision and ensure future policy benefits from the latest CAV knowledge. Through this approach we believe that we will help shape and build the market (the demand side) for the CAV sector in the UK and beyond. The Apollo project presents an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate UK Connected and Autonomous capabilities and technologies to a global audience and will pave the way for leading UK service operators, technology providers and cities to set the global standard for next-generation mobility services."