Five startups are set to help the British government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) protect connected truck networks and, as a result, public safety.
The project, funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport is being delivered in partnership with Zenzic, the body set up by the government to move the UK to a connected vehicle future.
The project hopes to start “platooning” trucks, essentially coupling them together using software. This allows vehicles to run closer together, reducing emissions and improving efficiency to bring down operating costs. But, as data is transferred within the infrastructure and between vehicles, it could become vulnerable to cyberattacks.
“Connected trucks and vehicles represent the future of road transport and platooning specifically can unlock benefits society needs, including reducing emissions. But we must build security intrinsically into the infrastructure underpinning connected transport to protect data – along with the vehicles themselves – from potential cyber-physical threats,” says Saj Huq, Director of Innovation at Plexal.
“Plexal’s excited to bring our open collaboration model to this hugely important challenge and work with startups, CCAV and Zenzic to uncover innovative solutions. We’ve identified the best startups from our ecosystem to address this challenge and look forward to working with them to bring pioneering new solutions to the market.”
Innovation centre Plexal has chosen five startups chosen to work on the project:
CyberHive’s Connect solution uses an efficient architecture framework and novel cryptography techniques to provide extremely low-latency, peer-to-peer connectivity on even low-power, embedded devices.
Crypto Quantique’s Q:Architecture is a scalable architecture for quickly and securely connecting IoT devices, including Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, to applications and services.
SwIDch plans to use its patented One-Time Authentication Code technology to resolve security issues related to connected vehicle security.
KETS Quantum Security, meanwhile, protects data and secures communications networks using ultra-secure quantum technology. And ANGOKA protects machine-to-machine communications in Smart City and mobility scenarios, as well as protecting the identity of devices.
There will be three testing phases the startups will be able to take part in:
- Unit tests: individual components against challenge scenarios.
- Integration tests: groups of components together to ensure they can integrate.
- Simulated system tests: simulated testing of the system as a whole to ensure it meets requirements.
“We are funding this scheme to help unlock the potential of new technology and protect us from future threats,” says Julia Lopez, Minister of State for Media, Data, and Digital Infrastructure.
“We’ve challenged the UK’s brightest tech pioneers to explore how we can keep vehicles secure from cyber threats and safely deliver benefits to the UK’s road transport system.”
“The future of connected vehicles can bring great benefit, but must be delivered securely. When we bring increasing vehicle autonomy it becomes all the more critical,” says Mark Cracknell, Head of CAM at Zenzic.
“The UK has a deep history of cyber resilience capability and today’s SMEs are at the forefront of ensuring that connected and self-driving vehicles are safe, secure and fit for purpose.”
Keyword: British Government Funds Project to Enable Lorry Platooning