A Nissan-led autonomous driving project will target the UK’s residential and single-track rural roads in a push to make the country more equipped to introduce self-driving vehicles.
Launched today, the evolvAD project will test a fleet of adapted Nissan Leafs over the next 21 months to assess if self-driving vehicles can be used outside of cities and in less-connected areas.
Fitted with Nissan’s advanced autonomous tech, the electric cars will utilise infrastructure such as CCTV in residential areas to improve situational awareness.
This also creates a test study on how vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) systems can be used to enhance the performance of self-driving vehicles, which may allow for the creation of new V2I technologies, said Nissan, the UK government and their four project partners.
The cars will also be tested on more complex rural roads to explore what types of autonomous vehicles could be used to connect more rural and intercity communities.
Although using a passenger car, the overall goal is to make the country ready for the mass deployment of autonomous vehicles for industrial supply chain use, said Nissan.
“Autonomous drive technologies are critical as they offer huge benefits in terms of vehicle safety, environmental impact and accessibility,” said Nissan’s David Moss, who added that autonomous driving was a key pillar of the Nissan Ambition 2030 strategy.
This latest project builds on the success of HumanDrive and ServCity, the latter of which used a Nissan Leaf to autonomously drive 1600 miles around “complex urban environments” in Greenwich, London, in a bid to help cities deliver ‘robotaxi’ services.
Add your comment