Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled it is testing connected car services that will enable drivers to earn cryptocurrency and make payments on the move.

Using Smart Wallet technology, owners earn credits by enabling their cars to automatically report useful road condition data such as traffic congestion or potholes to navigation providers or local authorities. Drivers could then redeem these for rewards such as coffee, or to automatically pay tolls, parking fees and for smart charging electric vehicles. Smart Wallet removes the need for drivers to hunt for loose change or sign up to multiple accounts to pay for a variety of everyday services.

Continue reading JLR’s connected car service lets owners earn cryptocurrency as they drive at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

Being able to communicate with pedestrians is one of the biggest challenges faced in the development of self-driving cars. Jaguar Land Rover has developed a system that projects images and lights onto the road ahead to indicate the vehicle’s direction of travel as well as when it’s about to pull away or stop.

As part of JLR’s commitment to autonomous vehicle technology development, the car manufacturer has been trialling the intelligent technology using driverless pods created by Aurrigo. A video of the technology in action shows the vehicle project a series of lines onto the road surface that adjust in spacing in relation to its speed.

Continue reading JLR trials light projection on its self-driving cars to gain pedestrian trust at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

The majority of the motoring world may be focusing on getting self-driving cars onto the road, but an effort to take autonomy onto alternative terrain is also well underway.

Drive settings, gear selection and maneuvering could all one day be handled by a computer. The aim, however, isn’t to take the fun out of off-roading, but to help develop smarter and safer AVs, whatever the weather.

This is the goal for Land Rover’s Cortex project, which is a bid to take learnings gleaned from the development of on-road autonomy, and apply it to alternative terrain. Using a 5D visualization system, the Cortex initiative, it is hoped, will deliver a car that can drive itself in any climatic condition, dealing with dirt, rain, ice, snow and fog.

Continue reading JLR’s Cortex Project and the future for off-road autonomy at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

One of the concerns with AVs is that drivers won’t make eye contact with pedestrians and cyclists to signal intent. Jaguar Land Rover has taken quite a literal approach toward solving this problem and has fitted large ‘virtual eyes’ to its driverless pods to study how humans will trust self-driving vehicles.

The car maker has enlisted the help of a team of cognitive psychologists to better understand how vehicle behaviour affects human confidence in new technology. The trust trials form part of JLR’s government-supported UK Autodrive project.

Trials include a fabricated street scene in Coventry, UK, where the pods drive around while the behaviour of pedestrians is analysed as they wait to cross the road.

Continue reading JLR fits virtual eyes to AV prototypes at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

Inrix has presented its AV Road Rules platform, which allows cities and road authorities to assign, validate and manage traffic rules and restrictions for AVs and enables AVs to report back problems with infrastructure.

When it comes to AVs, signage and road striping are not the ideal way to communicate changed road rules (for example when there are road works). Currently, AVs have to interpret information intended for humans, which can be an imprecise process.

Seven cities and road authorities and four AV operators have signed on to support Inrix AV Road Rules at launch, and others have expressed interest in joining when it expands later this year.

Continue reading New platform connects AVs to infrastructure at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

The UK CITE Project has entered its second phase, trialling connected car technologies on the road to prepare road networks for AVs. In partnership with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), it will test emergency electronic brake light warning, emergency vehicle warning, and in-vehicle signage for road works warnings and traffic condition warnings.

The focus of the project is the connected infrastructure, which it developed in phase one of the project. Started in June 2016, it included the preparation of the infrastructure and a vehicle, systems, and gantry application, which will ensure variable roadside messages appear in the vehicle, either on its integrated display or on a smartphone.

Continue reading UK CITE consortium brings connected cars to Midlands roads at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.

The AutopleX project, led by Jaguar Land Rover, uses connected, automated and live mapping to allow AVs to communicate and inform each other of road conditions ahead. The £4.7m (US$6.6m) project effectively lets AVs know what is around corners and behind obstacles, going beyond the possibilities of the sensors on a single, unconnected vehicle.

JLR, Ricardo, Highways England, Siemens, Transport for West Midlands and Warwick University are teaming up for the AutopleX project, which aims to investigate pioneering safety improvements for self-driving technology. It will enable AVs to communicate with all other road users and obstacles where there is no direct view, such as at blind junctions.

Continue reading New project allows AVs to see around corners at ADAS & Autonomous Vehicle International.