The driver could use the smartphone to reverse the car out of a parking space if someone has parked too close to allow the door to open, or allow the driver to become his or her own off-road spotter, to guide the car over off-road obstacles from outside the vehicle.

By walking alongside the car, the driver could continually check ramp, approach and departure angles and allow precise positioning of the vehicle when rock crawling. It could also be an aid when the vehicle is fording a stream or traversing sections made slippery by mud or snow. The remote control function will only operate if the user is within 10 meters of the car and if the smart key can be detected. The system will stop the vehicle if the driver moves out of range or gets too close.

Future possibilities for this technology could include more autonomous functionality where the driver gives a simple command from the handset to traverse an obstacle or exit a parking space, and the car does the rest.

Multi-Point Turns. Jaguar Land Rover's Multi-Point Turn Range Rover Sport is capable of autonomously maneuvering through 180 degrees to turn the car in the road and point the car in the opposite direction. This autonomous vehicle could extricate itself from the most difficult situations, such as a dead-end roads or congested car parks, as well as performing a three-point turn in a busy street or car park.

The system uses sensors to assess available space and to avoid pedestrians, vehicles and other objects. The system takes over gear selection, steering, braking and acceleration to make as many forward and backwards movements as necessary.

The research team is working on a system to scan the environment around the car and inform the driver whether it is safe to perform the turning maneuver. The driver then confirms the maneuver and the car would move forward until its path is blocked. It then selects reverse and uses the steering, throttle and brakes to do the same again. It repeats this as many times as required until it is facing in the opposite direction.

Getting a car out of a tricky parking maneuver can be a stressful experience for any driver. A Remote Control car, or a vehicle that can autonomously turn in the road, demonstrates how we could use these new technologies to reduce the tedious parts of driving and improve road safety.

Research into technologies like these won't only help us deliver an autonomous car. They will help make real driving safer and more enjoyable. The same sensors and systems that will help an autonomous car make the right decisions, will assist the driver and enhance the experience to help prevent accidents. Autonomous car technologies will not take away the fun of driving.

—Dr. Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology, Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover’s vision is to offer a choice of an engaged or autonomous drive. This means the car will be able to drive itself if the driver chooses, or offer systems that can be adjusted for a more engaging and involved drive.

Because our customers drive in all terrains and in all weathers, any future autonomous Jaguar or Land Rover must be as capable on rough tracks and unpaved roads as it would be on city streets. We know our customers drive in heavy rain, and snow, and bright desert sunshine every day. We are working on an array of new sensors that would enable a car to operate in any environment, without any outside intervention or input from lane markings or roadside infrastructure like traffic lights. Our research engineers have a nickname for a car with this level of capability: the Solo Car.

—Dr. Epple

Jaguar Land Rover has an advanced research program underway to enhance the car’s sensing capability. This project is developing a range of sophisticated sensors to make autonomous cars viable in a range of driving environments and weather conditions. Creating a car capable of functioning autonomously in all situations requires a fusion of sensors with different attributes including radar, LIDAR, cameras, ultrasonics and structured light technology.

Jaguar Land Rover is part of the UK Autodrive consortium which will undertake real-world testing of new ADAS technologies in Coventry and Milton Keynes. Jaguar Land Rover’s role in this project includes the real-world evaluation of semi-autonomous driving features in a Range Rover research vehicle and the development of human machine interface (HMI) systems in autonomous transport pods.

Predicting potholes on the road to autonomous driving. Jaguar Land Rover is also researching a new connected car technology that will allow a vehicle to identify the location and severity of potholes, broken drains and manhole covers, and then share this data in real-time via the cloud with other vehicles and with road authorities to help them prioritize repairs.

If a car can receive a warning from another vehicle about severe potholes or broken manholes ahead, then drivers would be able to slow down and avoid the danger—or the car could adjust suspension settings to reduce the impact and smooth the ride. This could help reduce the potential for punctures, wheel and vehicle damage as well as road accidents.

“Our MagneRide equipped Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport vehicles feature sophisticated sensors that allow the vehicle to profile the road surface under the wheels and identify potholes, raised manholes and broken drain covers. By monitoring the motion of the vehicle and changes in the height of the suspension, the car is able to continuously adjust the vehicle’s suspension characteristics, giving passengers a more comfortable ride over uneven and damaged road surfaces.

While this gives our customers a more comfortable ride, we think there is a huge opportunity to turn the information from these vehicle sensors into ‘big data’ and share it for the benefit of other road users. This could help prevent billions of pounds of vehicle damage and make road repairs more effective.

—Dr. Mike Bell, Global Connected Car Director, Jaguar Land Rover

The next stage of the project at Jaguar Land Rover’s Advanced Research Centre in the UK is to install new road surface sensing technology in the Range Rover Evoque research vehicle, including an advanced forward-facing stereo digital camera.

At the moment the most accurate data comes from when the car has driven over the pothole or manhole. So we are also researching how we could improve the measurement and accuracy of pothole detection by scanning the road ahead, so the car could predict how severe they are before the vehicle gets near them.

Ultimately, sensing the road ahead and assessing hazards is a key building block on our journey to the autonomous car. In the future, we are looking to develop systems that could automatically guide a car around potholes without the car leaving its lane and causing a danger to other drivers. If the pothole hazard was significant enough, safety systems could slow or even stop the car to minimize the impact. This could all help make future autonomous driving a safe and enjoyable reality.

—Mike Bell

Jaguar Land Rover’s research team will also be working with innovation partner Coventry City Council to understand how road profile information could be shared with road authorities, and exactly what data would be most useful for their roads maintenance teams to identify and prioritize repairs.

Jaguar Land Rover showcases Range Rover Sport with remote-control and autonomous 180˚ turn

Jaguar Land Rover is showcasing two of the prototype technologies that its UK-based research team are developing to deliver autonomous driving in the future: remote control via smartphone and autonomous multi-point turning.

A Remote Control Range Rover Sport research vehicle demonstrates how a driver could drive the vehicle from outside the car via a smartphone. The smartphone app includes control of steering, accelerator and brakes as well as changing from high and low range. This would allow the driver to walk alongside the car, at a maximum speed of 4 mph (6.4 km/h), to maneuver the car out of challenging situations safely, or even to negotiate difficult off-road terrain.

The driver could use the smartphone to reverse the car out of a parking space if someone has parked too close to allow the door to open, or allow the driver to become his or her own off-road spotter, to guide the car over off-road obstacles from outside the vehicle.

By walking alongside the car, the driver could continually check ramp, approach and departure angles and allow precise positioning of the vehicle when rock crawling. It could also be an aid when the vehicle is fording a stream or traversing sections made slippery by mud or snow. The remote control function will only operate if the user is within 10 meters of the car and if the smart key can be detected. The system will stop the vehicle if the driver moves out of range or gets too close.

Future possibilities for this technology could include more autonomous functionality where the driver gives a simple command from the handset to traverse an obstacle or exit a parking space, and the car does the rest.

Multi-Point Turns. Jaguar Land Rover's Multi-Point Turn Range Rover Sport is capable of autonomously maneuvering through 180 degrees to turn the car in the road and point the car in the opposite direction. This autonomous vehicle could extricate itself from the most difficult situations, such as a dead-end roads or congested car parks, as well as performing a three-point turn in a busy street or car park.

The system uses sensors to assess available space and to avoid pedestrians, vehicles and other objects. The system takes over gear selection, steering, braking and acceleration to make as many forward and backwards movements as necessary.

The research team is working on a system to scan the environment around the car and inform the driver whether it is safe to perform the turning maneuver. The driver then confirms the maneuver and the car would move forward until its path is blocked. It then selects reverse and uses the steering, throttle and brakes to do the same again. It repeats this as many times as required until it is facing in the opposite direction.

Getting a car out of a tricky parking maneuver can be a stressful experience for any driver. A Remote Control car, or a vehicle that can autonomously turn in the road, demonstrates how we could use these new technologies to reduce the tedious parts of driving and improve road safety.

Research into technologies like these won't only help us deliver an autonomous car. They will help make real driving safer and more enjoyable. The same sensors and systems that will help an autonomous car make the right decisions, will assist the driver and enhance the experience to help prevent accidents. Autonomous car technologies will not take away the fun of driving.

—Dr. Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology, Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover’s vision is to offer a choice of an engaged or autonomous drive. This means the car will be able to drive itself if the driver chooses, or offer systems that can be adjusted for a more engaging and involved drive.

Because our customers drive in all terrains and in all weathers, any future autonomous Jaguar or Land Rover must be as capable on rough tracks and unpaved roads as it would be on city streets. We know our customers drive in heavy rain, and snow, and bright desert sunshine every day. We are working on an array of new sensors that would enable a car to operate in any environment, without any outside intervention or input from lane markings or roadside infrastructure like traffic lights. Our research engineers have a nickname for a car with this level of capability: the Solo Car.

—Dr. Epple

Jaguar Land Rover has an advanced research program underway to enhance the car’s sensing capability. This project is developing a range of sophisticated sensors to make autonomous cars viable in a range of driving environments and weather conditions. Creating a car capable of functioning autonomously in all situations requires a fusion of sensors with different attributes including radar, LIDAR, cameras, ultrasonics and structured light technology.

Jaguar Land Rover is part of the UK Autodrive consortium which will undertake real-world testing of new ADAS technologies in Coventry and Milton Keynes. Jaguar Land Rover’s role in this project includes the real-world evaluation of semi-autonomous driving features in a Range Rover research vehicle and the development of human machine interface (HMI) systems in autonomous transport pods.

Predicting potholes on the road to autonomous driving. Jaguar Land Rover is also researching a new connected car technology that will allow a vehicle to identify the location and severity of potholes, broken drains and manhole covers, and then share this data in real-time via the cloud with other vehicles and with road authorities to help them prioritize repairs.

If a car can receive a warning from another vehicle about severe potholes or broken manholes ahead, then drivers would be able to slow down and avoid the danger—or the car could adjust suspension settings to reduce the impact and smooth the ride. This could help reduce the potential for punctures, wheel and vehicle damage as well as road accidents.

“Our MagneRide equipped Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport vehicles feature sophisticated sensors that allow the vehicle to profile the road surface under the wheels and identify potholes, raised manholes and broken drain covers. By monitoring the motion of the vehicle and changes in the height of the suspension, the car is able to continuously adjust the vehicle’s suspension characteristics, giving passengers a more comfortable ride over uneven and damaged road surfaces.

While this gives our customers a more comfortable ride, we think there is a huge opportunity to turn the information from these vehicle sensors into ‘big data’ and share it for the benefit of other road users. This could help prevent billions of pounds of vehicle damage and make road repairs more effective.

—Dr. Mike Bell, Global Connected Car Director, Jaguar Land Rover

The next stage of the project at Jaguar Land Rover’s Advanced Research Centre in the UK is to install new road surface sensing technology in the Range Rover Evoque research vehicle, including an advanced forward-facing stereo digital camera.

At the moment the most accurate data comes from when the car has driven over the pothole or manhole. So we are also researching how we could improve the measurement and accuracy of pothole detection by scanning the road ahead, so the car could predict how severe they are before the vehicle gets near them.

Ultimately, sensing the road ahead and assessing hazards is a key building block on our journey to the autonomous car. In the future, we are looking to develop systems that could automatically guide a car around potholes without the car leaving its lane and causing a danger to other drivers. If the pothole hazard was significant enough, safety systems could slow or even stop the car to minimize the impact. This could all help make future autonomous driving a safe and enjoyable reality.

—Mike Bell

Jaguar Land Rover’s research team will also be working with innovation partner Coventry City Council to understand how road profile information could be shared with road authorities, and exactly what data would be most useful for their roads maintenance teams to identify and prioritize repairs.