Innovate UK has granted funds to a consortium to study the data required to support autonomous vehicles.

The Atlas initiative will examine data needed for efficient autonomous navigation, and is one of the several projects in the country to benefit from £20m of government funding, reported Traffictechnologytoday.com.

The consortium includes Ordnance Survey, the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), Sony Europe, the Royal Borough of Greenwich, OxTS, GOBOTIX, and the Satellite Applications Catapult.

"Atlas is the latest in a string of innovative projects to be making use of TRL’s UK Smart Mobility Lab at Greenwich."

TRL CEO Rob Wallis said: "Atlas is the latest in a string of innovative projects to be making use of TRL’s UK Smart Mobility Lab at Greenwich.

"It is an important project for autonomous vehicle development because the success of this work will not only enable safe navigation of these vehicles, but help to transform our transport system and ultimately save lives.

"If we can understand how to safely and securely transfer data between vehicles, then we really can put the UK at the forefront of connected and automated mobility."

Ordnance Survey chief geospatial scientist Jeremy Morley said: "Autonomous vehicles will need to find their way reliably and safely through a vast network of streets while interacting with driven and other autonomous vehicles.

"These vehicles will combine the power of advanced sensors to detect road conditions, cutting-edge, 5G communications technology to access a stream of data about the world around them, and geographical databases of routes, destinations and points of interest.

Scheduled to begin on 1 May, the main aim of the project includes examining the possibility of maintaining, processing and distributing the data.

Satellite Applications Catapult CEO Stuart Martin said: "As part of the government’s investment in connected and autonomous vehicles, we’re hugely encouraged by the value placed on ensuring robust and resilient satellite data, a fundamental part of a successful data-driven programme.

"This will provide end-users with the assurance and confidence they require that data access, discovery and retrieval is managed securely by all associated parties."