British manufacturing group Jaguar Land Rover is performing tests for autonomous and connected cars on British roads to advance intelligent vehicle technology.
JLR has joined the UK Autodrive initiative which is trialling self-driving vehicles in Coventry and Milton Keynes, with the hope to conduct more experiments in cities between now and the end of 2018.
As well as cars from Ford and Tata Motors (which owns Jaguar Land Rover) JLR vehicles will be fitted with the latest equipment so that they can communicate with their surroundings, such as smart traffic lights and emergency vehicle warnings.
JLR plans to introduce semi-autonomous and fully driverless vehicles in the near-future and by testing it on public roads, it will help advance the technology required for autonomous vehicles even further.
JLR’s executive director for product engineering Nick Rogers said: “Testing this self-driving project on public roads is so exciting, as the complexity of the environment allows us to find robust ways to increase road safety in the future.
Save money on a new Land Rover today“By using inputs from multiple sensors, and finding intelligent ways to process this data, we are gaining accurate technical insight to pioneer the automotive application of these technologies.”
Rogers added: “Jaguar Land Rover is proud to be a leader in collaborative research projects for autonomous and connected cars. We are supporting innovative research that will be integral to the infrastructure, technology and legal landscape needed to make intelligent, self-driving vehicles a reality within the next decade.”
Coventry and Milton Keynes join only 11 other global cities to be testing autonomous vehicles on public roads.