
British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover will launch a fleet of more than 100 autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles on UK roads by 2020. Dubbed Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technologies, the vehicles will cruise along 41 miles of roads near Coventry and Solihull beginning later this year, with the first stage testing tech that allows cars to communicate directly with each other, and with infrastructure like signs and traffic lights.
While the company hasn’t revealed all the tech inside the new test vehicles, it did detail a few of the key technologies. First is the “Roadwork Assist” feature, which uses a front-facing 3D camera to scan the road for for cones and barriers. In a regular car, this would chart a course around the obstruction, and provide steering assistance. In an autonomous car, it could be used to navigate a way through roadworks without any human intervention at all.
The “Safe Pullaway” feature uses another camera to monitor the area in front of the vehicle, the idea being to prevent the driver (or computer) from being overeager with the accelerator and bumping the car in front before it’s had a chance to pull away. If the system detects that the car in front isn’t moving, it swiftly applies the brakes.
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Source: Ars Technica – Jaguar Land Rover to have fleet of 100 driverless cars on roads by 2020