Welcome to #aiCoventry
The future of artificial intelligence is here
Developing the Vehicles of the Future
Less than a decade ago, the idea of self-driving vehicles would have been considered science fiction.
Yet today, most cars come with some level of autonomy, whether lane-keeping or detecting hazards such as cars in front slamming on brakes or a child stepping into the road.
As vehicles incorporate ever more automation, the engineers on the future need to develop a very different skillset; traditional engineering skills which cross over into other areas such as electronics and software engineering. It is vital that new graduates are equipped with this understanding.
As the range of required skills broaden, no single engineer can possibly have a complete understanding of a subject, so they must work in a broader, cross-disciplinary team to succeed.
The teaching at Coventry University is based around collaborative group work. Students are given the opportunity to work both in teams comprised of students from their own subject area and in teams pulled from a wide variety of disciplines.
Instead of delivering a ‘traditional’ course which provides a general overview of autonomous vehicles, key aspects are covered in-depth within specific programmes to ensure student’s knowledge is deep enough to be able to contribute to autonomous vehicle development.
By working as a team of students, each of whom has an in-depth understanding of one facet of autonomous vehicle development, students can develop the skillset to design, build and test autonomous vehicles in a simulated environment similar to what they would experience in industry.
Building Success
A key facet of this vision is the need to validate learning through competition against other universities. As a result of this vision, student teams from Coventry University are successfully involved in several important events and competitions.
Read more about our work around autonomous racing at British Grand Prix 2019.
Find out more about one of only four teams taking part in the Autonomous Racing Car competition organised by the iMechE.
Find out more about the UASC competition.
The 12th WRSC event will take place near Shanghai in China.
