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Automotive

Nissan's Piloted Drive prototype to begin on-road tests

By Ben Coxworth
October 30, 2015
Nissan's Piloted Drive prototype to begin on-road tests
Nissan's Piloted Drive test vehicle
Nissan's Piloted Drive test vehicle
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Nissan's Piloted Drive test vehicle
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Nissan's Piloted Drive test vehicle
Some of the Piloted Drive vehicle's key features
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Some of the Piloted Drive vehicle's key features

Three years ago, Nissan unveiled a one-of-a-kind Leaf electric car that incorporated autonomous driving features such as Automated Valet Parking, in which it would drop off its driver before finding parking on its own. In 2013, using the company's Autonomous Drive system, the car drove on a Tokyo highway without human assistance. This Thursday an updated test vehicle was unveiled, which features the automaker's new Piloted Drive system. Plans call for it to soon be tested on busy urban roads.

The experimental Leaf is now equipped with features including millimeter wave radar scanners, multiple cameras, high-speed computer chips, and a specialized HMI (Human Machine Interface). Its laser scanners are particularly significant, as they allow the onboard computer to determine the distance between the car and its surroundings, in three dimensions.

The new cameras are also important, as they work together to provide a 360-degree view around the vehicle. This feature assists the Leaf in plotting courses through intersections and sharp curving roads.

Some of the Piloted Drive vehicle's key features
Some of the Piloted Drive vehicle's key features

Using all this technology, the car can now autonomously perform maneuvers such as maintaining distance from a vehicle that it's following, staying in its lane, changing lanes, overtaking slower or stopped vehicles, merging with traffic, exiting, negotiating interchanges, turning at intersections, and stopping for red lights.

The HMI includes a main command center where drivers can switch between autonomous (piloted) and manual driving; an LCD screen that displays information such as speed, battery charge level, plus the view from the cameras; and, a heads-up display that shows the driver the car's intended driving path when in autonomous mode.

Although testing of the system is due to begin on busy city roads in the near future, the fully-functional version of Piloted Drive isn't due to appear in consumer vehicles until 2020. In the meantime Nissan plans on releasing Piloted Drive 1.0, which allows for autonomous driving under heavy highway traffic conditions, by the end of next year in Japan.

Source: Nissan

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2 comments
Ben Coxworth
Ben Coxworth
Based out of Edmonton, Canada, Ben Coxworth has been writing for New Atlas since 2009 and is presently Managing Editor for North America. An experienced freelance writer, he previously obtained an English BA from the University of Saskatchewan, then spent over 20 years working in various markets as a television reporter, producer and news videographer. Ben is particularly interested in scientific innovation, human-powered transportation, and the marine environment.

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2 comments
jade_goat
"...a heads-up display that shows the driver the car's intended driving path when in autonomous mode."
That's an *excellent* idea! I believe this should be compulsory for all self-driving cars. It gives the human "driver" (as it were) real reassurance that the car is calculating the correct "course" to follow.
Maybe the HUD could also indicate things like (say) pedestrians crossing the road in front of the car too? That would give added assurance to the "driver" that the system has "seen" a person and the car will avoid them.
Animals could be a difficult problem. Getting the system to distinguish between (say) a dog running across the road (that you'd rather not run over) and a possum running across the road (that it doesn't matter so much if you run over).
It may be the case that that problem is just left as "too hard" and that it's just bad luck for a dog owner if his dog gets run over by a self-driving car.
Mel Tisdale
Whilst I cannot see these autonomous systems surviving the first fatality that can be attributed to them, they should be an excellent source of some really useful driver assist features. Take for instance the head up display (HUD) that shows the driver the path this vehicle is about to follow when in autonomous mode. That would make a valuable feature of any sat-nav system on any car. Showing the path through the moving traffic that the driver should take both into and out of complex junctions would be very useful. It would be even more useful if nearby vehicles were capable of receiving the same information and whose onboard driver assistance features positioned those vehicles (with the driver's help, if not in autonomous mode) to facilitate the other vehicle's manoeuvre.
Whilst I have not seen any evidence of it, I sincerely hope that somewhere there is a working group comprising engineers from road vehicle manufacturers that is busy setting the standards that all autonomous vehicles will have to meet, and by that I mean globally. (These will also need to match up with traffic lights etc. and also have a date for implementation.
In addition, there is no reason why all new vehicles should not be left-hand drive ready for the day when these systems will be universal. They will all have sat-navs by then, which, one sincerely hopes, will be working to a common map that will be updated whilst on the move. Given that circumstance, any road planner with a two-digit I.Q. and a pulse should be able to plan the map alterations necessary to implement a progressive roll-out of a left-hand drive road system. With all vehicles having the autonomous/driver assistance safety features built in, only the deaf, the dumb and the daft will actually attempt to overtake on the wrong side. It will be a pretty poor system that lets them continue with the manoeuver into on-coming traffic if it isn't sounding a 'wake the dead' klaxon and flashing in large letters on the HUD: 'DANGER - PULL BACK!' In whatever language the driver has selected.
The more one thinks about it, the more it seems that the introduction of all these features should mark a step change in the evolution of the personal mobility provision of our species, namely, the motor car. The date of full implementation could also mark the day when internal combustion engines for cars became extinct. That should lend impetus to a standard for 'refuelling' the batteries. (E.g. will it always be possible to lock the charging plug into the vehicle so that owners can leave it while it charges and only be able to unplug it after payment - the car being immobilised until then?)
This is a big subject and it would be nice if Gizmag were able somehow to give us an overview of the progress to date vehicle manufacturers have made towards creating a standard for autonomous vehicle operation to which they were all working - and perhaps what exactly those standards are. For instance, how are they going to determine what speed vehicles should be limited to at any public location and how that is going to be imposed to all vehicles regardless of date of manufacture.