connectivity

Our partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) has been crucial to our work at Darwin, enabling projects like the Darwin Autonomous Shuttle and our ubiquitous communications technology. ESA’s Directorate for Telecommunications and Integrated Applications (TIA) has now published a white paper about the connected car of the future, and we’re delighted to have played a role in the paper’s creation.

On 15 March 2023, Virgin Media O2 and Cisco launched a remarkable product: a private 5G network in a box. The portable network is aimed at organisations that want to make use of 5G’s high capacity and potential but cannot afford to invest in 5G infrastructure.

The launch took place at O2 and Darwin’s SatCom Lab at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. Darwin also played a part in the portable network’s development by testing the product in its fleet of connected vehicles, including the Darwin Autonomous Shuttle.

Darwin was founded with the goal of combining terrestrial and satellite communications. We’ve made huge strides in the intervening time, and we’re pleased to report a new landmark: we’ve been granted a patent for our vehicle communications technology.

On 9 September, the University of Glasgow held a workshop about the future of transport. The workshop took place at Inverness Campus, but people were also welcome to take part online.

The discussion focused on the current issues with transport and how these could be improved. In this post, we’ve recapped some of the problems and potential solutions that the workshop touched on.

Rodrigo Barreto, Darwin’s lead architect, has written this overview of Darwin’s inspiration, achievements and plans for the future.