Jaguar Land Rover is currently developing fully- and semi-autonomous vehicle technologies for all-terrain and off-road driving in any weather condition.
The “Cortex” project is the first of its kind, according to the company, and is engineering vehicles to utilize a “5D” technique combining acoustic, video, radar, light detection and distance sensing (LiDAR) data live in real-time. Access to this combined data improves the awareness of the environment the car is in. Machine-learning enables the self-driving car to behave in an increasingly sophisticated way, allowing it to handle any weather condition on any terrain.
“It’s important that we develop our self-driving vehicles with the same capability and performance customers expect from all Jaguars and Land Rovers,” said Chis Holmes, connected and autonomous vehicle research manager for Jaguar. “Self-driving is an inevitability for the automotive industry, and ensuring that our autonomous offering is the most enjoyable, capable and safe is what drives us to explore the boundaries of innovation. Cortex gives us the opportunity to work with some fantastic partners whose expertise will help us realize this vision in the near future.”
Cortex will develop the technology through algorithm development, sensor optimization and physical testing on off-road tracks in the UK. The University of Birmingham, with its world-leading research in radar and sensing for autonomous platforms and Myrtle AI, machine learning experts, join the project.
In the future, Jaguar Land Rover plans to offer customers a choice of the level of automation, while maintaining an enjoyable and safe driving experience.
