For the past few months, the industry has been working to accelerate the adoption of electric technology, but we shouldn’t forget about the development of autonomous driving assistance technologies, a not-so-distant reality, at least if we believe what Nissan revealed this morning. Indeed, the Japanese manufacturer indicated that it was currently working on a new driving assistance technology.
The latter uses very precise and real-time information on the vehicle’s environment to considerably improve collision prevention. The carmaker has published a video showing a Nissan Skyline (Infiniti Q50) avoiding several obstacles in a closed circuit.
Using LIDAR, radar and high-performance camera technologies, Nissan claims that this “ground truth perception” technology can detect the shape and distance of objects, as well as the structure of the area surrounding the vehicle, in real time and with great accuracy. With this information, the vehicle can instantly analyze the current situation, make judgments and automatically perform the necessary operations to avoid collisions. The technology can also detect slowdowns and road obstacles from a distance and execute lane changes accordingly.
Nissan also says the technology can provide increased assistance to drivers in areas where detailed map information is not available.
“Nissan was the first to market with a number of advanced driver assistance technologies. As we look to the future of autonomous driving, we believe it is of the utmost importance that owners have a high level of confidence in the safety of their vehicle. We believe that our ground truth perception technology under development will contribute significantly to owner confidence, reduced traffic accidents and autonomous driving in the future,” said Takao Asami, senior vice president, global research and development at Nissan.
The automaker is working with the firm Luminar1 to develop this new generation of LIDAR. As with all other manufacturers, Nissan is looking to reduce the number of accidents on the road and this more advanced driving assistance system is just one of many options.
Also note that on the simulated videos, we see the Nissan Chill-Out concept, the crossover coupe that could be the next all-electric vehicle to come to the Nissan lineup.
