Driverless cars tech inspired by swarming insects

Hi,

I wondered if this new €1.8 million driverless car research would be of interest? The global research is inspired by swarming insects, and aims to create a pioneering new collision avoidance system to enhance the safety of driverless cars. The ULTRACEPT project will draw on insects’ rapid reactions to develop sensor technology that works day and night and can quickly adapt to unexpected hazards and different conditions – a key stumbling block for the current technology. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme – full details below.

Best wishes,
Cerri


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Cerri Evans | PR Officer

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PRESS RELEASE
Inspired by Insects: New Anti-collision Technology Could Help Create Safer Driverless Cars
Swarming insects are the inspiration behind a global research project that aims to create a pioneering new collision avoidance system to enhance the safety of driverless cars.

Funded by a €1.8 million grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the project will develop a miniature, trustworthy collision detection sensor system that could drastically improve the safety of autonomous vehicles.

Although extensive testing of these vehicles has already begun both on and off road, their safety around other vehicles and unexpected hazards is a key stumbling block in their development. The ULTRACEPT project – which stands for Ultra-layered perception with brain-inspired information processing for vehicle collision avoidance and is led by the University of Lincoln, UK – will develop a new microchip for driverless vehicles which aims to make them safe to serve human society.


Developers have found that the current approaches for vehicle collision detection are largely ineffective in terms of reliability, cost, energy consumption and size: radar is too sensitive to metallic material, GPS-based methods face difficulties in cities with high buildings, vehicle-to-vehicle communication cannot detect pedestrians or any unconnected objects, and normal vision sensors cannot cope with fog, rain or dim light conditions at night. The ULTRACEPT researchers hope to develop a system that will overcome all of these issues.

The new ULTRACEPT sensor will be inspired by the rapid reactions of insects, incorporating near-range collision detection technology, long-range hazard perception, and thermal-based collision detection tools. This will ensure that it works day and night, and can quickly adapt to unexpected hazards and different conditions – for example sudden weather changes or driving in and out of tunnels.

This means that the robust, low-cost, and energy-efficient collision detection and avoidance system will offer a capability which is currently beyond the autonomous vehicles in development. The project brings together experts from universities in the UK, Germany, China, Japan, Malaysia and South America.

Professor Shigang Yue, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln, is leading the ULTRACEPT project. He said: “Autonomous vehicles, although still in the early stages of development, have demonstrated huge potential for shaping our future lifestyles – from sending children to school, driving commuters to work, delivering packages to households, and distributing goods to warehouses, shops or remote areas. But to be functional on a daily basis there is one critical issue to solve; trustworthy collision detection.

“Biology provides a rich source of inspiration for artificial visual systems for collision detection and avoidance. For example, locusts, with a compact visual brain, can fly for hundreds of miles in dense swarms free of collision; praying mantis can monitor tiny moving prey with the help of specialised visual neurons; and nocturnal insects successfully forage in the forest at night without collision.

“These naturally evolved vision systems provide ideal models to develop an artificial system for collision detection and avoidance, and we hope that in the future, each vehicle, with or without a driver, will be well equipped with an innovative sensor to navigate as effectively as animals do.�??

The project will bring together a world-class research team with specialist expertise including experts in hardware and software systems and robotics, invertebrate visual neuroscientists, invertebrate vision modellers, mixed-signal chip designers, robotics platform providers, and brain-inspired pattern recognition.

It builds on Professor Yue’s expertise in developing autonomous navigation of mobile robots based on the locust’s unique visual system, as well as the work carried out as part of the previous ‘Spatial-Temporal Information Processing for Collision Detection in Dynamic Environments’ (STEP2DYNA) research project, also led by the University of Lincoln.
The University of Lincoln is working with Hamburg University and Newcastle University for STEP2DYNA, plus partners from the University of Buenos Aires in South America, Kyushu University in Japan, and Chinese institutions, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University and Tsinghua University.

Joining the consortium for ULTRACEPT is the University of Münster, Universiti Putra Malaysia, National University Corporation Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lingnan Normal University, Northwestern Polytechnic University and Guizhou University, plus SMEs Visomorphic Technology in the UK, and German-based Dino Robotics.


Professor Yue added: “Most autonomous vehicles are still legally restricted to their testing arena precisely because developers can’t be sure of their safety and accidents involving Tesla and Uber cars, with autonomous driving functionality on, have only highlighted this issue further. Collision detection and avoidance is so important for vehicles now and in the future, yet there is no acceptable product currently available on the market to specifically meet this need – that is exactly what we hope to develop.�??

The project will also involve building up a comprehensive video database of hazardous driving scenes so that the systems developed can be rigorously tested before being taken out on the road.

As well as being used within autonomous vehicles, ULTRACEPT’s integrated computer vision system will be applicable to a number of other industries, including robotics, video game developments and healthcare.

- Ends -
Notes to editors
For media enquiries, including image and interview requests, please contact Cerri Evans in the University of Lincoln Press Office on +44(0)1522 886165 or email cevans@lincoln.ac.uk<mailto:cevans@lincoln.ac.uk>
About the projects:
STEP2DYNA (Spatial-temporal information processing for collision detection in dynamic environments) is ongoing until June 2020. ULTRACEPT will run alongside from December 2018 but will continue until December 2022.
Full consortium participants for STEP2DYNA:
Beneficiaries
University of Lincoln, UK
Newcastle University, UK
Hamburg University, Germany
Partners
University of Buenos Aires, South America
Kyushu University, Japan
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
Tsinghua University, China

Full consortium participants for ULTRACEPT:
Beneficiaries
University of Lincoln, UK
Newcastle University, UK
Hamburg University, Germany
University of Munster, Germany
Visomorphic, UK
Dino Robotics, Germany
Partners
University of Buenos Aires, South America
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
Tsinghua University, China
Universiti Putra, Malaysia
National University Corporation Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan
Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Lingnan Normal University, China
Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
Guizhou University, China

About the European Union support to research and innovation:
Horizon 2020 is the EU's biggest ever research and innovation framework programme with a budget of €77 billion over seven years (2014-2020). Part of the programme, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) provide grants for all stages of researchers' careers - be they doctoral candidates or highly experienced researchers - and encourage transnational, intersectoral and interdisciplinary mobility. The MSCA enable research-focused organisations (universities, research centres, and companies) to host talented foreign researchers and to create strategic partnerships with leading institutions worldwide.
The Action "Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE)" funds short-term exchanges for staff to develop careers combining scientific excellence with exposure to other countries and sectors. RISE enables more interaction between academia and non-academic organisations within Europe and worldwide.

About the University of Lincoln, UK:
The University of Lincoln was awarded Gold – the highest standard possible - in the national Teaching Excellence Framework, an independent assessment of teaching quality in UK higher education. The award reflects our exciting teaching, great support for students and excellent employment outcomes. Lincoln is a top 50 UK university (The Guardian University Guide 2018; Complete University Guide 2018), known for a pioneering approach to working with employers, which has been recognised with a Lord Stafford Award and Times Higher Education Award. In the National Student Survey 2017, students rated Lincoln in the top 20 in the UK for academic support, learning resources and learning community with several of our courses placed number one overall for their subject areas. Among our most recent graduates, 95 per cent were in work or further study six months after finishing their course, with more than three quarters in graduate level roles. More than half of our research is judged to be internationally excellent or world leading (Research Excellence Framework).


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