HORIBA MIRA’s ASSURED CAV is Now Open

HORIBA MIRA’s ASSURED CAV, Europe’s most comprehensive ecosystem for connected and automated vehicle engineering and testing, is now fully operational and open for engineering customers.

Located in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, ASSURED CAV provides access to a diverse mix of physical and virtual environments. They replicate real-world scenarios to validate the critical challenges of implementing connected, self-driving technologies, ensuring products are safe, secure and robust.

ASSURED CAV supports mobility companies in the design, development and testing of self-driving technology, reducing the uncertainty, complexity and time spent in development.

Fast Facts: HORIBA MIRA’s ASSURED CAV

  • Located in Nuneaton, Warwickshire over a 350-hectare site
  • New £100 million facility, four years in development
  • Operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
  • Providing full journey environments including high speed (HIGHWAY), urban (CITY), parking (PARKING) and CAV-enabled public road trial environment (ROUTES)
  • Extensive best-in-class simulation tools for virtual scenario testing replicating ASSURED CAV facilities and public road environments
  • New proprietary technologies for recreating real-world objects that vehicles encounter on roads and in towns and cities
  • Private 4G and 5G mobile network and ITS G5
  • Extensive ADAS robotic targets and supporting junction layouts

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HIGHWAY:

  • A completely level facility with a 300m diameter dynamic platform to test vehicles at their limit
  • Fully configurable lane and junction markings
  • The asphalt surface is within +/- 4mm flatness across the entire test area
  • Central approach road is 15 lanes wide
  • Supports customisable scenario-based testing of merging, lane assist, platooning and evasive manoeuvres to be conducted to international regulatory protocols and beyond

 

Example Use Case

For ADAS and CAV, the west tangential approach is set-up with a variety of centre line and lane edge temporary line markings to facilitate the testing and development of lane support systems across a wide range of use cases. Given the nature of the approach, vehicle overtaking, undertaking and oncoming vehicle scenarios can also be undertaken.

In addition, the central approach can accommodate AEB testing for rear end, vulnerable road users and junctions, with an NCAP specification junction marked out utilising temporary line markings.

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CITY:

  • Fully controllable and configurable, connected urban and sub-urban driving environment
  • Mix of urban junction types and street furniture frequently experienced in cities
  • Enables the validation of complex automated driving systems and traffic scenarios under safe and repeatable test conditions

 

Example Use Case

The master junction, equipped with connected traffic lights and alongside the privately terminated 5G network available across all ASSURED CAV facilities, has been designed to enable R&D of Green Light Optimisation systems. The connected traffic lights are also able to support the ITS G5 protocol.

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PARKING:

  • A dedicated multi-storey car park replicating real-world situations to support the development of self-parking solutions
  • Restricted visibility, constricted manoeuvres and GPS drop-out in covered locations
  • Indoor Positioning System to allow full GPS equivalency within the structure for accurate location and robotic target synchronisation

 

Example Use Case

The multi-storey car park has been designed to facilitate the development of Autonomous Valet Parking systems. Alongside this it also provides a multitude of challenging test scenarios including sensor deflection from ramps. Using the indoor localisation technology available in the car park, other actors, such as vulnerable road users can be injected into scenarios during manoeuvres. The lighting within the car park is fully configurable to create sensor blindness due to varying lighting levels across an indoor car park.

Routes Coleshill Road

ROUTES:

  • A 500km network of CAV-enabled public roads, directly accessible from site
  • Equipped with a dedicated communications infrastructure
  • Access to a full hierarchy of local and strategic road classifications
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SIMULATION:

  • Advanced simulation capabilities with pre-configured ‘test-ready’ scenario database
  • Digital twins for physical tests on the proving ground and on ROUTES
  • Proprietary tools to replicate weather and road conditions
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PHYSICAL TWINS:

  • Advanced physical twins using HORIBA MIRA’s façade, road marking and street furniture technologies
  • Authentic replication of the sensor signatures of masonry, vegetation and other physical materials
  • Replication in SIMULATION and ROUTES
Highway construction1

During the four-year development process:

  • 235,000m3 of earth was moved, all of which was reused on site
  • 198,000mof earth was used in the construction of ASSURED CAV HIGHWAY
  • 37,000mof earth was used to create screening bunds
  • All test areas have zero gradient, both longitudinally and transversely
  • A 5.6km sustainable drainage system was created
  • 5Ha of land set aside for natural regeneration