New CAVWAY proving ground facilities in Oxford to open later this year

Jon Hall

8th July 2021

New CAVWAY proving ground facilities in Oxford

CAVWAY, a new specialised proving ground for the development and testing of Autonomous and Connected Vehicles, is under construction in Oxford, England. When it opens in Q4 of 2021, it will be one of the most comprehensive facilities of its kind in the UK; the result of a consortium between Prova Developments Ltd and IDIADA Automotive Technology (UK) Ltd.

Sitting partly on the site of the former Oakley Airfield in Buckinghamshire, halfway between Oxford and Aylesbury, CAVWAY occupies a total area of 77ha. with just over 105,000 square metres of tracks, loops and intersections. The old airfield’s hangar will be preserved for workshops and offices.

CAV development and ADAS validation testing programmes

Uniquely, CAVWAY will include a comprehensive set of highway junctions, all within a fully connected, controlled, repeatable and safe environment. This will enable the performance of all required development and validation testing programmes for ADAS and CAV development, according to the latest Euro NCAP and regulation requirements.

A wide variety of testing possibilities for development and validation projects will be possible thanks to fully configurable V2X, C-V2X, 4G / 5G network coverage. It will be possible to control everything the vehicle ‘hears’ and ‘sees’ in a coordinated way to set up tricky edge-case traffic scenarios, facilitating seamless integration between experimental and virtual development work.

Among the many services it will provide, CAVWAY will also offer vehicle simulation and cybersecurity testing in normal and abnormal conditions, as well as connectivity testing and benchmarking.

CAVWAY is part of a central UK government initiative by the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). The initiative provided £100M of government funding which was match-funded by industry to create a network of testing sites across the UK to support the emerging industry for connected and autonomous technology. 

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