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Driverless and Connected Car ‘Living Lab’ and Testing Ground Launches in UK

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Jennifer van der Kleut

The United Kingdom is moving full-speed ahead toward a society where driverless transportation is more common.

News outlets this week announced the launch of the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab in Greenwich, London. The lab will reportedly function as an “open innovation environment” where companies and researchers can design and develop self-driving and connected-car technology, test it in a realistic environment, and then work to integrate the finished product into the public, Highways Magazine explains.

Experts are saying Greenwich is the perfect place for the Living Lab to be located due to the many forms of transportation that locals use there, including roads, buses, underground, rail, the Docklands Light Railway, river buses and the Emirates Airline cable car.

“According to [the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL)], this provides an ideal environment to test the interaction and interoperability of connected and autonomous vehicles in a variety of different environments,” Highways Magazine reports.

“By providing a welcoming and real-life regulatory environment for testing, TRL can help accelerate the adoption of new technology and enable the UK to play a pivotal role in the development of this global market over the next five years,” said Rob Wallis, CEO of TRL, to Eureka Magazine UK.

IT Pro Portal reports that 9 million pounds in government funding was key in helping the Living Lab come to be. The project is one of many that received a portion of 100 million pounds in investment funds that the government pledged toward driverless transportation research in 2015.

UK elected officials are praising the launch of the Smart Mobility Living Lab.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones said to Highways Magazine, “Driverless cars will improve road safety and bring huge benefits to the economy. We have backed projects in Greenwich with [9 million pounds] of funding that are helping to turn it into a major centre for testing and demonstration. I am excited to see the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab progress, helping to keep the UK at the forefront of the motoring of the future.”

Nissan Brings Us Self-Driving……Chairs?

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Japan may not have self-driving cars loose on public roads yet-but they at least have self-driving chairs.

Yes, we said chairs! In a new video uploaded to YouTube, Nissan shows off its latest creation-office chairs that reset themselves to their original position, tucked into a table or desk, at just the clap of your hands.

Nissan’s fancy, autonomous “smart chairs” can reset themselves either with or without a human sitting in them.

In a press release, Nissan explains the new technology behind the chairs, which they say was inspired by self-parking technology they are already working on in cars.

The system appears to function with sensors on each chair that pair up with wireless cameras placed on the room’s ceiling.

“The ‘Intelligent Parking Chair’ is a unique chair that automatically moves to a set position,” Nissan’s press release states. “The chair includes a roller to automatically move 360 degrees, paired with a system that indicates the target position. Four cameras placed on the room’s ceiling generate a bird’s-eye view to wirelessly transmit the chair’s position and its route to destination.”

When the chairs are empty, someone can clap their hands and all the chairs in the room will automatically guide themselves back into position at the table, as Nissan’s video illustrates.

When someone is in the chair, he or she appears to be able to use controls, similar to those on an electric wheelchair, to guide themself back into position at the table.

Though they call the self-parking chairs a “novelty,” Tech Times said, “It’s proof that autonomous vehicle technology has implications far beyond the automotive field.”

Tech Times points out that the smart chair technology could prove particularly valuable for large rooms like auditoriums and cafeterias.

See Toyota’s self-parking smart chairs in action in their YouTube video: