PROFILE: PAUL NEWMAN OXFORD
Becoming an EPSRC Leadership Fellow transformed my career The Government’s ambitions to support the UK development of driverless cars was recently strengthened through the formation of the cross departmental Centre for Connected Autonomous Vehicles. It is one further and significant step forward for a research and development story that owes much to the support of EPSRC. In 2010, Professor Paul Newman, at the University of Oxford, became an EPSRC Leadership Fellow. Paul leads the Oxford Mobile Robotics Group (MRG), which is at the cutting-edge of UK research into mobile autonomy. The fellowship gave him the opportunity to take things forward on a number of levels from establishing essential industrial links with partners such as BAE Systems and Nissan to setting up a spin out company Oxbotica. It also gave Paul the chance to contribute to the Department for Transport’s review on driverless vehicle technology. “Becoming an EPSRC Leadership Fellow totally transformed things for me. It freed up time so that I could do the basic research, pull the different technologies together, garner industrial support and work with policy makers in Westminster to make the UK a place for testing driverless cars and to put our own test vehicle on the road.” That vehicle was the all-electric RobotCar. Cameras and laser sensors provide the necessary information for an on-board computer to calculate and control speed, direction and avoid obstacles; the driver can take back control at any time. MRG with the support of Oxbotica are also developing the software autonomy system for driverless Autonomous Pods. These will be trialled on a footpath area in Milton Keynes. If the trials are successful, the idea is to start using them for short journeys for the general public. However, driverless cars are just one of many applications that Paul is working on in the vast and varied area of mobile robotics. EPSRC has played a long-term key role in supporting his research work since 2003.