As autonomous cars – plus the technology behind them - grab more headlines and fill the visions of more and more automakers, more often than not for the right reasons, a conclusion is that there will be many divergent systems competing for supremacy once the self driving cars reach ubiquity. If you think the smartphone wars were facile and a waste of time, the autonomous car one-upping is poised to create chaos.
Into the fray, then, steps in Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s largest automobile manufacturer, who would clearly rather develop its own self-driving tech rather than getting left out of the advent entirely. To that end, JLR has plans to create a fleet of 100 semi-autonomous cars to use as a test bed to further the kind of features it will be rolling out to passenger cars in showrooms as well as to develop fully autonomous driving systems.
The fleet itself will start this year in the UK, but with only a handful of vehicles. The full hundred cars will be in operation as the fleet expands gradually up to the year 2020. Once the first vehicle is sufficiently prepared, it will be tested along a 66km route that spans motorways and narrower town roads around Coventry, England.
Jaguar Land Rover will be using forward-facing 3D camera technology to recognise barriers, other vehicles, pedestrians, road signs and lane markers. It will have the ability to brake automatically when it senses a potential collision. In addition, the JLR vehicles in the fleet will be able to communicate with each other to warn of approaching hazards or report real time traffic information to create the most efficient use of the given road network.
Of course, JLR’s fledgling efforts are admirable but their comparatively late start has put them behind other companies that have been investigating autonomous vehicle technology for years now. Google, notably, has already driven over 2.4 million kilometres with their own self-driving system.
Like many new paradigms in any industry, and particularly the automotive industry, regulation plays a big role, either hampering or fostering innovation. In the UK, autonomous cars are allowed to be tested on public roads but with the condition that there is a driver present in the driver’s seat and to take responsibility for vehicle behaviour and movements.
For more on Jaguar Land Rover vehicles, including pricing and specifications, check out our Showroom.
