innovITS ADVANCE comprises:
• The world´s first purpose-built facility for industry to develop, test and validate ITS and telematics products and innovations

• A ‘virtual city´ configurable to replicate the navigational network connectivity of almost any type of street environment from skyscraper neighbourhoods typical of London´s Docklands or Lower Manhattan, to mixed suburban development and full urban canyon

• Fully controllable private communications networks including GSM, GPRS. 3G and Wi-Fi DSRC allowing virtually any scenario of signal attenuation and denial to be replicated

• A dedicated and secure testing environment for the automotive, telematics and ITS industriesFor the first time, engineers from the automotive, telematics, telecoms and transportation sectors will be able to work together to pull forward many new technologies and innovations that might otherwise never reach the market. According to Phil Pettitt, CEO of innovITS, “innovITS ADVANCE will act as a crucial enabler for the safer, more efficient and sustainable future of transportation The performance of ITS systems is becoming increasingly critical, in terms of transactions and safety. The industry needs to develop robust systems that work properly in all situations and this requires detailed testing".

The focus of the facility is the ‘city circuit´, a comprehensive road network designed to be configurable to replicate an urban driving environment anywhere in the world with numerous junctions, intersections, roundabouts and multi-lane highways with a range of road surfaces across an area of 120,000 sq metres and over 4Km of roads. This network is equipped with roadside architecture including traffic signals configured for both left and right side traffic circulation, CCTV and catwalk gantries allowing installation of overhead equipment for testing, monitoring and signage.

The road network is combined with an open architecture of multi-zoned Wi-Fi, and GSM, GPRS and 3G private stand-alone mobile telecoms networks and Wi-Fi mesh system that can be configured according to the precise needs of particular tests. As such the robustness and fault tolerance of new products can be tested in precisely controlled conditions of network and signal access and denial — including those of GNNS such as GPS and Galileo. The centre provides an open-architecture environment in which development teams can recreate exactly the scenarios they require in order to develop new ITS products, services, equipment and systems. It would not be possible — and in many cases neither would it be legally permissible — to carry this type of work out in a real town or city; a fact which has to date held back the realization of many promising ITS innovations.

Roger Wilson, business development manager for innovITS ADVANCE has confirmed that “there has already been significant interest in the facility from a broad cross section of the ITS and Telematics industry with a particular focus on collision avoidance systems, connected cars and vehicle efficiency programmes. The unique nature of the communication systems at innovITS ADVANCE allows the replication and functionality of public GSM/GPRS and 3G networks with the added benefit that users can carry out tests and development in a secure, controlled and validated environment safe in the knowledge that they can repeat network characteristics whilst integrating various technologies available for test purposes."

For more information visit: http://www.innovits.com/advance/