Public Funding for Syselek (UK) LTD.

The ENROUTE project concerns sharing live data about electric commercial vehicle movements from fleet operators to other value chain stakeholders, to facilitate optimum scheduling of charging events and ensure charging infrastructure availability. The project will deliver a detailed business case for data sharing with costs and benefits, and demonstrate a proof-of-concept data sharing solution, which addresses barriers such as standardised data formats, anonymisation of commercially sensitive operations, and security. The outcome will provide confidence for investment decisions and accelerate adoption of electric HGVs as a means to freight and logistics decarbonisation.

To avoid congestion and related emissions, major transport hubs require efficient public transport options that link travellers to onward destinations. Viable options must provide end-to-end comfort, reliability, safety, and accessibility. Currently, unless running along primary, dense transport arteries, public transport operators cannot deliver commercial, reliable services that link transport hubs with many standalone locations such as business parks, universities, housing estates, rural towns, and retail parks, due to ridership narrowly missing commercial thresholds, in turn resulting in significant private vehicle use -- such routes are termed "Step 2". These trips are typically repeatable, below 10 miles and involve hundreds (not thousands) of passengers per day. Delivering such journeys via commercially viable public transport represents a core mobility challenge to transport commissioners. The UK Central Hub (the Hub) is home to the future Arden Cross HS2 interchange, Birmingham International Airport and Birmingham International Railway station. It is a transport and commercial hub of regional significance. Approximately 7.8 miles south of the Hub is Blyth Valley Park (BVP), a commercial centre with over 3,500 people travelling to and from it each day. In addition, the park is approaching completion of 750 new homes. It takes over an hour by public transport to reach the Hub. The route linking the Hub and BVP, the focus of this study, utilises a short 'junction hop' length of the M42\. The outcomes from the study will enable an informed evaluation of CAM to equivalent mobility challenges nationwide, including those that utilise the Strategic Road Network (SRN).There is no existing data and knowledge of scaled Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) services. As CAM solutions approach maturity novel and innovative methodologies are needed to evaluate their viability. This project will deliver a study on the feasibility of a CAM shuttle service considering two different Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technologies, to address the UK Central Hub to BVP challenge.

Electric HGVs are the leading technology solution for decarbonisation of the road freight sector and will be essential for the UK to meet net zero commitments. However, the commercial viability of eHGVs for fleet operators is unclear, particularly as energy costs rise. To ensure the optimum total cost of ownership, and improve the commercial viability of eHGVs, a fleet operation energy management solution is needed. The FAIR project involves the development of an AI-based solution to accurately predict journey energy demand, thus enabling decisions about fleet smart charging, with trade-offs between required energy, vehicles stop times, and energy tariffs. The solution will be integrated into Syselek's EnergyConnect platform and demonstrated with pilot customers.

**An exciting project focussed on developing and maturing the simulation, modelling and physical testing supply chain for UK-centric CAM perception sensor and systems developers.** Sim4CAMSens will build a UK supply chain that will advance the quality of modelling, simulation, test and characterisation capability in the UK to accelerate and de-risk the design, development, validation and usage of perception systems sensors and algorithms for automated driving functions. The project will create clear links between the tools, methodologies, standards and safety cases. With state-of-the-art modelling and simulation environments, Sim4CAMSens will deliver much needed synthetic training data of suitable quality for the training of AI systems used in autonomous vehicles. We are bringing together an expert, world-class consortium of partners to support the development of an emerging UK-based perception sensors and systems industry by accelerating the development of perception sensors for assisted and automated driving functions There is a nascent perception sensor design and development industry in the UK, with the potential to challenge global innovation with the right investment and coordination. In parallel, the UK has developed outstanding modelling, simulation and testing capabilities for automated vehicle systems through previous Innovate UK supported projects as well as continued industry investment. We see a major opportunity for the UK by bringing these two worlds together to create a globally competitive sensor design, development, modelling, simulation and testing supply chain. The supply chain will focus on the specific use case of the development and testing of three sensor technologies within the virtual and physical test framework: 1\. RADAR (Oxford RF, Claytex), 2\. Camera technology (rFpro), 3\. LiDAR development (CSAC, Claytex).

Building on an existing proven business case for a Metro route in the West Midlands, this project will develop an independently verified case for a segregated transit corridor by substituting the initial light rail solution with the capabilities of driverless, remotely supervised, rail-less service utilising automated, platooning shuttle vehicles using tyre-on-tarmac technology. The study will consider the traditional rail-based requirements, and associated capital and operational costs, that can be removed; and the new requirements and costs that will be required.

V2X offers great potential in managing power flows between vehicles, buildings and the electric distribution network with EV battery storage mitigating demand. Very high-power charging via the emerging megawatt charging system (MCS) standard for electric HGVs (eHGVs) offers considerable power management opportunities and challenges between the vehicle and the building, microgrid, or distribution network to which it is connected. This project involves the design and integration of innovative equipment comprising a local DC microgrid that will provide multidirectional charging with eHGVs at megawatt power levels. It will feature integral energy storage to buffer the high-power flows with equipment utilising the latest generation of solid-state switching devices to achieve the highest efficiency, reduced size, and lowest cost. Microgrids will unlock the potential for demand and supply management by making it simple, scalable and reduce the cost of connecting EVs to the electric distribution network. MCS is expected to be introduced from 2025 onwards to support the increasing number of eHGVs being developed. They offer great potential for V2X because of the large capacity of the vehicle batteries and the fact that eHGV fleets drive pre-determined routes; hence their movements and availability are predictable. Fleet operators also stand to benefit from a lower total cost of ownership by utilising their vehicle batteries as energy storage assets. Our objective is to enable this by making high-power, EV interfacing to the grid as easy and versatile as possible.

Connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) are a route to safe, accessible, readily available and zero emission transport for society. Vehicles can be operational 24/7 to support affordable mobility as and when people need it, whilst minimising the crash risks brought into driving by human operators. Systems have been developed and trialled, however, when operating on public roads, currently a safety supervisor must be present in the vehicle in case anything goes wrong. Additionally, safety concerns related to potentially unreliable communications or cyber security failures need to be allayed to facilitate a widescale roll out. To fully realise the opportunities that CAVs can bring, we need to develop and test appropriate, safe, and cyber resilient systems and protocols that allow fully autonomous operation on UK public roads. The SPACES project aims to demonstrate that the jump to fully commercial services without onboard safety supervision is not a dream but is achievable now. The SPACES project will be led by RDM Group who, via their autonomous vehicle arm Aurrigo, have developed and tested the autonomous AUTO-SHUTTLE for road operations and the AUTO-POD(r). RDM will work with key organisations including Warwick Manufacturing Group, Vodafone, Thales, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, Syselek and the National Exhibition Centre. The assembled group will allow SPACES to develop the technological innovation in CAV engineering and communications with the cyber resilience required to operate without safety supervision, whilst developing real life informed test cases that can be trialled at the Midlands Future Mobility CAM testbed. Our project will culminate in a live demonstration at the NEC, where our autonomous vehicle can be showcased at a specially built test bed site located within the NEC grounds. The demonstration events will show key stakeholders including transport operators, local and national government, vehicle manufacturers and the general public that CAVs can be operated safely and securely. We will seek to widely disseminate and communicate our research outputs to outline CAV safety and support societal understanding of this technology and its potential uses and positive impact. SPACES will develop, verify and validate CAV technology, communications systems and cyber security requirements, strengthen the safety case for CAVs, provide increased understanding of the infrastructure needed for safe operation and inform UK policy, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of removing the need for an on-board safety supervisor whilst operating in a live environment.