Jaguar Land Rover is developing a Smart City Hub for electric vehicles

Jaguar Land Rover has partnered with global software, mobility and telecom companies to develop a ‘smart city hub’ on a giant campus in Ireland. Here, field tests are carried out with self-driving vehicles on a public road section with pedestrians and cyclists and other vehicles.

This Future Mobility Campus Ireland (FMCI) provides the facilities and expertise to collect valuable sensor data, simulate different types of roads and traffic situations and try out new technology. The fully electric Jaguar I-PACE is used for various tests.

Test garden for Jaguar Land Rover

The living lab benefits Jaguar Land Rover’s research into autonomous, connected, electrified and shared vehicles and is a critical part of the business in making society safer and healthier with every imaginable technology.

The test area will be fully equipped with sensors, location systems, a center for data management and self-driving prototypes. There are smart intersections, connected roads, autonomous parking and charging systems, as well as connections to a 450-kilometer-long connected highway. There is also an air traffic corridor for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Shannon Airport along the Shannon estuary in Ireland.

Jaguar Land Rover is the FMCI’s lead partner and will help develop the facility along with a number of other global technology companies. These include Cisco , Seagate, Renovo, Red Hat, Valeo and Mergon. Traditionally, such test sites were developed on the other side of the ocean. The FMCI provides Jaguar Land Rover with a key research location close to an existing facility: the Shannon software hub.