Self-Driving Range Rover Sport of Jaguar Land Rover is completely packed of cutting-edge hi-tech equipments and sensors and recently was put on a test on Coventry Ring Road. The Self-Driving Range Rover Sport successfully passed the test by handling complicated roundabouts, traffic lights, slip roads and lane changes, everything at speed limit of 40mph, even at rush hours. In addition, the Self-Driving Range Rover Sport had negotiated the Coventry Ring Road first time.
The test was a part of three-year UK Autodrive project that was funded by the government for nearly £20 million. Jaguar Land Rover, luxury car maker from West Midlands is regarded as one amongst the leading firms in the project. Further, this company has been planning to increase the availability of self-driving vehicles to its customers within next decade.
Safety with regards to the project had been extremely crucial and therefore, engineers of Jaguar Land Rover had taken out wide-ranging testing of the Self-Driving Range Rover Sport on closed tracks even before taking it to public roads in Coventry and Milton Keynes. Autonomous vehicle research manager of Jaguar Land Rover, Mark Cund had mentioned that Coventry Ring Road features complicated exits and slip roads. Therefore, it had been extremely challenging for the test to take place in such conditions, especially when under utmost pressure during rush hours.
Mark further stated that the company’s self-driving cars do not undergo the same pressure, fatigue or frustrations that is experienced by a driver. Therefore, it holds the potential to turn every stressful situation into extremely stress-free one. Self-Driving Range Rover Sport was chosen for testing owing to its exclusively existing features and performance such as the Adaptive Cruise Control. This feature has been modified for including additional lidar, radar and navigation sensors. Self-Driving Range Rover Sport now autonomously park itself, handles cyclists, pedestrians, traffic lights, roundabouts and other vehicles as well on the complicated roads.
The self-driving technology utilizes internet for connecting vehicles with each other as well as to infrastructures such as the traffic lights. Another notable point here is that during the project, one amongst the major developments were installation of the ‘smart’ technology onto road networks, which in turn benefits the self-driving cars for communication purposes.
Jaguar Land Rover will be continuing development of self-driving vehicles that would be capable enough of operating in the widest-range of terrains as well as other weather conditions. In addition, the company has also been taking immense efforts in making the pedestrians feel safe around the self-driving cars. For instance, the company launched an autonomous pod integrated with large googly-eyes that has been created for looking directly at the pedestrians crossing roads. This in turn provides them with confidence that the machine is completely aware of their move and won’t be running them over.