Autonomy

The British Ministry of Defence is investing £3.5 million (US$4.8 million) in the Dstl for the Co-operative Strike Weapons Technology Demonstrator program to develop new systems that will allow missiles in flight to communicate with one another.

China's closest Tesla Model 3 competitor, the XPeng P7, launched in April last year, loaded with enough self-driving sensors and computers to achieve autonomy once the software is ready. Today, an OTA update gives the P7 more than 40 new capabilities.

Spider-Man's "spidey-sense" isn't purely fiction – spiders have tiny, sensitive hairs on their legs that help them avoid predators or hunt prey. And now, engineers at Purdue University have developed similar sensors for autonomous cars or drones.

​Sweden's Einride unveiled the first prototype T-pod truck in 2017. The transport company inked a partnership agreement in 2018 with global logistics company DB Schenker to test the T-pod, and now the autonomous electric truck has made its public roads debut.​

ESA has now detailed the side mission it’s planning for the asteroid-visiting spacecraft Hera. After the main work is complete, the probe will test out some new autonomous navigation systems, which should help future spacecraft get around without relying on ground control all the way back on Earth.

​Waymo (Google before it) has now clocked up over 10 million autonomous miles on public roads in 25 cities. Last year, Phoenix, Arizona, became the first to set its self-driving cars free of human back up by allowing a public trial of fully driverless vehicles. Now California has joined the party.​

Nvidia has announced a new AI supercomputer with enough processing power for fully autonomous (Level 5) driving. The Drive PX Pegasus packs in four AI processors in total, yet only takes up a space the size of a licence plate.

Jaguar Land Rover is powering ahead in its pursuit of a driverless future, showing off its Autonomous Urban Drive technology as it gears up for public trials. The technology is designed to steer a vehicle through urban streets, and is a step towards level four autonomy.

The Cadillac CT6 is good, but it lags in the technology stakes compared to the semi-autonomous showoffs you can buy from Mercedes and BMW. The car has taken a baby step towards matching its European rivals with the new Super Cruise system.

Self-driving cars and drones need to be able to quickly take in their surroundings even in extreme road conditions and bad weather, but conventional optical cameras aren't quite up to the job. Researchers have now developed a camera that detects changes in a scene at nanosecond intervals.

It's not just the big marques and cities trying to make autonomous cars happen. Delphi and Mobileye have teamed up to bring a ready-to-run autonomous solution to market by 2019, with a demonstration set to take place at CES in Las Vegas next year. ​

​As a company founded on go-anywhere capability, Land Rover needs to think about autonomy slightly differently to most brands. The way a Discovery or Range Rover tackles a trail is intrinsic to its appeal, an appeal engineers are trying to autonomously recreate in their new research project.