Valerann, a UK/IL based start-up that develops autonomous traffic management systems for roads has partnered with Excelerate Technology, an established International tech SME based in Cardiff, UK that offers satellite connectivity solutions to form the ITS Equant consortium. With the support of the Satellite Applications Catapult, ITS Equant has secured a €1.2M funded project from the European Space Agency to enable roads to leverage space technologies to make them safer, more efficient, and ready to support autonomous vehicles.
Aerial view highway road intersection at dusk for transportation, distribution or traffic background.
The project will allow Valerann to leverage satellite communications and GPS technologies to make its system scalable and available as an off-grid solution.
Gabriel Jacobson, Valerann’s CEO, said
“The advantages of traffic management are well documented, but both these technologies and future technologies such as autonomous vehicles are highly dependent on connectivity that often does not exist. With ITS Equant we will provide roads and road operators a scalable solution that can be deployed on any road, regardless of whether these roads have existing connectivity.”
David Savage, Excelerate Technology’s founder adds,
“Today, 36% of UK highways do not have stable 4G connectivity and many roads have no cellular connectivity whatsoever. We are excited to partner with Valerann and the European Space Agency to create a solution that collects data and provides connectivity on any road to make our journey’s safer and more efficient.”
Valerann and Excelerate Technology will collaborate over the next 18 months to integrate satellite technologies into Valerann’s Smart Road System. In this time, the companies will demonstrate the advantages of leveraging space technologies to collect and share data about traffic and road environments. The consortium will work with Valerann’s clients to showcase how improved off-grid traffic management can help road operators reduce detection time and response time to events and increase the effectiveness of counter congestion measures. Looking to the future, as vehicles become more connected and autonomous, Valerann’s Satellite-enabled Smart Road System will provide data directly to vehicles about downstream road and traffic conditions, to help accelerate the safe introduction of autonomous vehicles.
About Valerann: Valerann is a start-up that was founded in 2016 with a mission to make roads safer and more efficient through improved data systems. Valerann allows road operators to collect and leverage more granular data to make better and faster decisions, helping them increase safety, reduce congestion, and decrease emissions. Valerann works with road operators in Europe, the US, and Israel to make their roads smarter, as well as collaborates with OEMs such as Bosch and Jaguar Land Rover to provide data from roads that supports autonomous vehicles.
About Excelerate; Excelerate was founded in 2001 and is the UK Market Leader in the provision of Major Incident Ground Technology in Incident Command Vehicles to Police, Fire and Ambulance and other government agencies and public utilities with applications in Data, Voice and Video via satellite and 4G. It is a combination of four major features – Excelerate is an Inventor/Developer, it is a significant Systems Integrator, it provides its own 24/7 Global Technical Support and it is a Network Operator in Satellite and 4G. It has offices or subsidiaries in the UK, France, Middle East, Australia and America
To learn more visit https://business.esa.int/projects/its-equant
