London’s Smart Mobility Living Lab (SMLL) is now fully operational and open to customers.
The urban connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) testbed in Woolwich was launched virtually in September 2020 and will now enable international technology and service providers to test CAVs in real-world conditions.
The SMLL has been designed to accelerate the commercialisation of market-ready future transport and mobility solutions. It has also been created for organisations from traditionally unrelated sectors such as energy, retail, and communications.
Lucien Linders, general manager of SMLL, said: “We have opened at a time when the demand for transport innovation is intensifying. The need for decarbonisation, alongside initiatives including increasing shared mobility, and new ways of moving goods about, have brought the requirement for SMLL to the forefront of the transport agenda.”
SMLL is currently supporting CAV projects including Endeavour, ServCity and Darwin. SMLL said the complexity of the London testbed means that if the technology works there, it will work anywhere.
Furthermore, SMLL enables sensor technology validation and is working with infrastructure and vehicle providers to take advantage of connectivity with traffic signal data.
TRL is lending its human factors team to assist with studies on pedestrian behaviour around specific road features to understand the implications for AI systems providing situational awareness of driverless vehicles.
Linders added: “Despite the impact of Covid-19, because the testbed is a live environment, it is genuinely ‘open for business’ and we are confident we can deliver vehicle and technology trials safely.
“Our Innovation Community events may have to remain virtual for a time, but the collaboration has not stopped and the R&D projects we are involved in are all carrying on”.
Click here to read our site visit to the SMLL from the November 2020 issue of CiTTi Magazine. Katie Searles toured the £20m facility to discover how this testbed will help develop CAV solutions faster than ever before…
