Ultra-layered perception with brain-inspired information processing for vehicle collision avoidance
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement number no 778062.
The ULTRACEPT project started on 01 December 2018. It was scheduled to run for 4 years until 30 November 2022, however, due to COVID related delays, the project was extended 22 months and is now scheduled to end 30 September 2024.
The primary objective of this project is to develop a trustworthy vehicle collision detection system inspired by animals’ visual brain via trans-institutional collaboration. Processing multiple modalities sensor data inputs, such as vision and thermal maps with innovative visual brain-inspired algorithms, the project will embrace multidisciplinary and cross-continental academia and industry cooperation in the field of bio-inspired visual neural systems via neural physiological experiments, software simulation, hardware realisation and system integration. The innovative brain-inspired collision detection system has the advantages of low-cost spatial-temporal and parallel computing capacity of visual neural systems and can be realised in chips specifically for collision detection, both in normal and in complex and/or in extreme environments.
This project brings together 19 world-class research teams and European SMEs each with specialised expertise:
- invertebrate visual neuroscientists (UNEW and UBA on the locust and crab),
- invertebrate vision modellers (UoL, ULEIC),
- cognitive neural system modellers (XJTU, GZHU and GZU),
- mixed-signal VLSI chip designers (TU),
- experts in hardware/software systems and robotics (UHAM, HUST, TUAT, LNU),
- robotics platform provider and market explorer (VISO, DINO),
- image signal processing (UPM, NWU), and
- brain-inspired pattern recognition expert (CASIA, WWU).
The specifically designed research staff secondments, joint workshops and conferences, will facilitate knowledge transfer between partners and generate significant impact in vehicle collision avoidance research with applications to not only on road safety, but also to other applications such as mobile robots, health care and the video games industry.
The project will cultivate concrete research connections between institutions in Europe, the Far East and South America, and will significantly enhance the leadership of the European Institutions in this emerging research field.
The European SMEs will have opportunities to access world-leading expertise in research and development and position themselves well as a market leader in automatic collision detection sensor and systems, which in turn also help to expand its market share in intelligent sensor systems.
To learn more about the ULTRACEPT partners, please see our consortium page.
To learn more about the project objectives, these have been broken down into sub-objectives in the form of work packages which you can view here.