Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is stepping up its game on autonomous driving, testing its prototypes in what it says is “one of the UK’s most challenging road layouts”. Tests on JLR’s self-driving vehicle, which is a modified Range Rover Sport are now being taken forwards. The prototype has been under development for years now and was first tested on a public road in 2017. JLR has now tested the autonomous SUV on the beltway around Coventry City, home to the automaker’s headquarters.
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Speaking of why the Coventry Ring Road was chosen for the test, JLR’s manager of autonomous vehicle research Mark Cund said that the road has multiple complicated slip roads and exits. He added that the section of the road created a challenging condition for the autonomous system to overcome, especially during rush hour.
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Land Rover released a video showing the Range Rover Sport changing lanes, exiting junctions, and merging with moving traffic at speeds of up to 64 km/h – all without any human intervention. There were, however, two engineers present inside the SUV to make sure things go as planned.
The self-driving Range Rover Sport has been equipped with a list of gear needed to make a car have a mind of its own. This includes Lidar sensors, cameras, and GPS technology. JLR did the test as part of U.K. Autodrive, a $26 million government-funded project geared toward the development of autonomous vehicles.
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Jaguar Land Rover is one of many automakers and technology firms around the world which are racing towards developing an autonomous system that is truly impeccable. Alphabet-owned Waymo – the autonomous-car project onc0e under the guidance of Google — was one of the first to invest heavily in the technology, and earlier this week announced it’d reached 10 million miles of testing on public roads since its first drive in 2009. Besides these, the likes of Tesla, Audi, or technology component manufacturers like Bosch are all in the race.
