New technology that could be used as a ‘black box’ for a wide range of vehicles is being developed in Hampshire.

Electronic engineers at Roke Manor Research in Romsey have developed a device that enables 3-D footage to be produced from the dashboard — showing the exact trajectory of the vehicle in the run-up to an accident.

Initially developed to help soldiers in combat navigate their way around a building, the technology uses a camera and a motion sensor; it could be used on bikes, in HGVs or in cars, the engineering team has said.

Engineer Mikael Mannberg said: “The device, which has the working name v-Pinpoint, combines a standard dash-cam with an inertial measurement unit — the gizmo used in smart-phones to re-align the screen when the phone is turned around.

“It records 200 measurements per sec while the vehicle is in motion; this data is then used to produce a basic representation of the vehicle’s trajectory, before being transformed into a 3-D reconstruction of the journey. The footage could be used by insurers to process claims more quickly — or even developed by computer companies to make user-generated video games.”

James Revell, consultant engineer at Roke, said: “Unlike current dash-cams, the technology uses computer-vision algorithms to establish the precise position and orientation of any vehicle — car, bike, lorry or autonomous vehicle. This allows for near-perfect 3-D reconstruction of any accident, even if the vehicle loses complete control.”

Mr Mannberg says that the team has been developing the technology for nearly three years and is now ready to find manufacturers or companies who want to licence the microchip or algorithms. Roke is an independent R&D company and has had £15,000 of funding from Innovate UK to help it develop the device.