Jaguar Land Rover tests connected car technologies in 2016. Photo: Flickr, Jaguar MENA.

Spirent Communications has announced a partnership with Cranfield University to develop Connected Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technologies. The aim of the research project is to improve positioning and timing technologies to enable better performance of unmanned vehicles, such as autonomous aircraft or connected cars.

Spirent engineers are working with Cranfield’s postgraduate researchers to develop new methods for synchronization and location testing, using Spirent’s test systems.

Spirent is supporting a number of Individual Research Projects (IRP) in Cranfield’s Autonomous Vehicle Dynamics and Control (AVDC) MSc program as an industry partner. The projects already identified include “GPS-Based Clock Synchronization for an Airborne Distributed Sensor Network” and “In-Car Mapping and Receiver Integration Testing for Autonomous Vehicles”.

“Location awareness for autonomous vehicles is of major importance, and is one of the most challenging applications in commercial GNSS development. We will be working with Cranfield to create new test and development tools that will provide the opportunity for improved system performance, accuracy and resilience,” said Mark Holbrow, head of engineering at Spirent’s positioning business unit.