Jaguar Land Rover has expanded its efforts to develop autonomous driving technologies for future models, opening new research centres in Bologna (Italy), Madrid (Spain) and Munich (Germany).
The three new hubs will work on advanced driver assistance systems and artificial intelligence (AI) for “self-driving cars of the future”, according to the British car maker.
Underpinning these future cars will be a suite of hardware and software from American computing giant Nvidia, with which JLR signed a deal a year ago.
The two companies will work together on software development, materialising an important part of former JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré’s Reimagine strategy for the firm.
Nvidia’s Drive software architecture will form the basis of the “next-generation automated driving systems” and “AI-enabled services” integrated into all new Jaguar and Land Rover cars.
Specific details of the system's functionality remain under wraps, but JLR last year suggested active safety, parking systems, occupant monitoring, advanced visualisation and uprated safety aids will be among the headline features.
A crucial component for JLR's business model will be the opening up of new revenue streams courtesy of the heightened connectivity capacity of its cars.
JLR is ultimately aiming for Nvidia-equipped cars to be capable of level-three autonomous driving, which means they will have environmental detection capabilities and all be able to make decisions without human input – but the human drivers must remain alert and able to take control.
Premium rival Mercedes-Benz is currently a leader in this field, having already received approval for its level-three Drive Pilot system in Germany and the US state of Nevada.
Meanwhile, Volvo has equipped its upcoming EX90 – a rival to the Range Rover EV slated for a 2024 launch – with the hardware to support autonomous driving technology, in anticipation of software and legislation becoming ready during the model’s life cycle.
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This accident mitigation thingy, bit hyper, no?, occasionally it flashes a red warning when there's plenty of room,and, I thought AI wasn't going to happen, I read that that Drones that are used by the Armed forces were going to be fully autonomous ,then they realised that taking the human out of the decision making was a bad idea, will this happen in Cars?
They will need special programming for Range Rovers, computer will have to charge up closing lanes and cut into the front of a queue with brute force, drive at 100mph flashing peasants out the way in the outside lane, park across at least 2 parking spaces....