The Multi User Environment for Autonomous Vehicle Innovation (MUEAVI) is a purpose built experimental facility for the rapid development of on- and off-highway, ground and airborne autonomous solutions. This includes vehicles, infrastructure, data, logistics, environment, sensors and their implementation and management.
MUEAVI is an instrumented transport corridor through the middle of the campus which consists of two sections:
Section 1: The Southern loop controlled access environment. This is a structured bi-directional single carriageway country road, together with a configurable sealed surface, off-road and ‘splash’ sections. Section #1 can be closed off completely, allowing emerging technologies to be developed in a safe and accurately repeatable environment.
Section 2: Open access environment. This section runs through the middle of campus, includes a new car park, and is therefore uncontrolled and public in nature.
In the middle of the facility, within the Intelligent Mobility Engineering Centre (IMEC), there are vehicle workshops, EV chargers, vehicle simulators, and laboratories for autonomous vehicle, mechatronics and control systems. IMEC interfaces both physically and operationally with the MUEAVI Control Tower, inclusive of the control-viewing room. All of the data from MUEAVI is relayed in near real-time from the communication network running alongside both sides of the road into IMEC, from where it can be accessed securely by the researchers and their R&D partners.
Summary of applications
Current projects using MUEAVI include:
- CogShift – EPSRC,
- HumanDrive – Innovate UK,
- LLGF – Large Landing Gear of the Future – ATi,
- Aircraft Tyre Characterisation – Dunlop,
- CORAM – Innovate UK.
Using the facility
Our current clients include Nissan, Oxbotica, Jaguar Land Rover, Honda and Westfield, among others, who use the facility to re-create urban and off-road environments for the precise quantification of autonomous and semi-autonomous (ADAS equipped) vehicle performance.
In association with the test tracks, a range of vehicle and infrastructure instrumentation is available to measure the position of not only the test vehicle, but also a suite of other road vehicles and other actors to an accuracy of 20mm anywhere on track. This enables real traffic situations to be recreated faithfully in a controlled manner allowing rapid fault finding and systems development.
A wide range of instrumented vehicles are also supplied with the facility to support experimental programs. These include sports cars, saloons, sports utility vehicles, a 7.5T box lorry, articulated HGV, agricultural tractors, tracked vehicles and a bicycle.
In addition to vehicle test programmes, the facility is also being used for infrastructure sensor development and advances in V2V and V2X communications capabilities.
MUEAVI is co-funded by SEMLEP (South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership) from the Government’s Local Growth Fund (LGF) and ÂãÁÄÖ±²¥. The Intelligent Mobility Engineering Centre (IMEC) is co-funded by SEMLEP, HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) and ÂãÁÄÖ±²¥.
