Swarm Intelligence to be investigated
Posted on 29 May 2017 and read 2662 times
Coventry-based RDM Group (
www.rdmgroup.co.uk) has teamed up with the Warwick Manufacturing Group (at the University of Warwick) and Milton Keynes Council to take part in a project established by Innovate UK to investigate Swarm Intelligence.
Simon Brewerton, chief technology officer at RDM, said: “The type of behaviour we are trying to replicate is the same as that seen in ant colonies and bees, where information is shared between insects to achieve a co-ordinated goal.
“If we get this right, we’ll improve the efficiency of the car fleet, while reducing the human involvement and costs. Significant time and money has been channelled into developing driverless-vehicle technologies.
“However, for the economic, social and environmental benefits to be truly realised, traditional swarming approaches developed in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and computer science need to be applied to fleets of autonomous vehicles, so that they can function collectively and with maximum efficiency.
“The project will be developed over the next two years with, a view to starting a three-month trial in April 2019. It will also use WMG technology to simulate multiple ‘virtual’ pods alongside pods operating in real time at two different test sites.
“We are in the process of recruiting four new engineers, in addition to three new researchers and engineers at WMG, to help with development. The plan is to build an additional 10 next-generation pods by 2019.”
Stewart Birrell at WMG said: “R&D is moving away from the technical challenges of making autonomous pods towards how a fleet of them will be deployed in the real world.
“Here at WMG, we are developing the algorithm and checking that the decisions made are robust and reliable, but equally important is that they are accepted and trusted by passengers and other road users.”