A Nissan project to test driverless technology has seen a car drive autonomously more than 200 miles to the company’s Sunderland plant.
Nissan has worked with the Government and a number of other organisations on the project which saw a Leaf vehicle drive 230 miles from the company’s test centre at Cranfield, Bedfordshire, to Wearside.
The car travelled on a range of roads, including country roads and motorways, using inbuilt technology now available on a number of Nissan models.
Engineers were in the vehicle during the tests but the vehicle was driven autonomously for the entire journey other than a handful of stops at service stations during the journey for checks and charging to be carried out.
The successful test - dubbed the Grand Drive - is the culmination of two-and-a-half years’ work on the HumanDrive project, which sees Nissan working with the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, Highways England and Innovate 海角视频.
The project aims to develop autonomous vehicle control systems that can navigate all roads, as well as changing lanes, merging, and stopping and starting when necessary.
HumanDrive has also seen Nissan working with Hitachi to make driverless cars more comfortable by using machine learning to test different driving scenarios.
Bob Bateman, project manager at the Nissan Technical Centre said: “The HumanDrive project allowed us to develop an autonomous vehicle that can tackle challenges encountered on 海角视频 roads that are unique to this part of the world, such as complex roundabouts and high-speed country lanes with no road markings, white lines or kerbs.”
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Nissan is building the ProPILOT technology into its Juke, Leaf, Qashqai and X-Trail models which can help drivers with steering, acceleration and braking.
The company hopes the technology will liberate drivers from some of the more mundane elements of motoring, reduce stress and fatigue on long journeys.
Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “Safely completing the longest autonomous drive in Britain is an incredible achievement for Nissan and the HumanDrive consortium, and a huge step towards the rollout of driverless cars on 海角视频 streets.
“This project is a shining example of how the automotive industry, working with government, can drive forward technology to benefit people’s mobility - while helping to slash carbon emissions.”
David Moss, senior vice president for research and development in Europe at Nissan, said: “Nissan’s Intelligent Mobility vision is to develop autonomous drive technologies for use in all of our cars in any area of the world. The door is now open to build on this successful 海角视频 research project, as we move towards a future which is more autonomous, more electric, and more connected.”