Nissan to begin studying UK readiness for autonomous driving

Nissan is to begin studying the readiness of the UK to introduce autonomous driving (AD) systems after completing its latest AD research project.

The manufacturer was the technical lead on the 21-month evolvAD project, which saw the five partners – Nissan, Connected Places Catapult, Humanising Autonomy, SBD Automotive and TRL – work to technically support UK supply chain readiness for future mass deployment of AD technologies.

It built on previous Nissan-backed projects in the UK – HumanDrive and ServCity – with the three projects seeing more than 16,000 autonomous miles driven over eight years across the country’s motorways, urban centres, residential streets and countryside, with no collisions.

David Moss, senior vice-president, region research and development for Nissan AMIEO (Africa, Middle East, India, Europe and Oceania), said: “All three research projects have been tremendously successful in driving our knowledge and understanding of how AD technology performs across challenging driving environments.

“It has been a privilege working with our dedicated partners to advance AD mobility.

“As well as making driving safer by reducing human error, and cleaner by improving efficiency, this technology can give many more people access to mobility who may not have it today due to location, age or disability.

“Our talented UK team at Nissan Technical Centre Europe in Cranfield will continue developing this technology, and we’re excited to bring AD mobility services to customers in the coming years.”

The project was was jointly funded by government and the consortium partners. The government’s £100m Intelligent Mobility fund is administered by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and delivered by Innovate UK.

During evolvAD, connected and autonomous vehicles were tested in various simulators and on private test tracks before being introduced on to urban residential and rural roads.

These road types present unique challenges for AD technology, including low-speed driving on narrow, single-lane roads in urban residential areas.

For higher speed routes on winding roads with no markings in rural areas, Nissan has introduced a chassis control system for the AD vehicle to enhance the brakes and steering to allow it to perform as an advanced driver.

Using infrastructure such as CCTV on residential streets, the vehicles received information to improve situational awareness, creating a unique case study on how vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) can be used to enhance the performance of CAVs, as well as developing all-new V2I technologies.

Robert Bateman, evolvAD project manager and manager of Nissan’s research and advanced engineering team at Nissan Technical Centre Europe, said: “Following the successful conclusion of evolvAD and previous projects, we are now shifting towards studying the readiness of the UK to introduce AD systems.

“Again, working with partners, we need to develop a 360-degree understanding of infrastructure and regulatory needs across the country, and provide critical insight to policymakers and urban planners to ensure a successful introduction of AD mobility services in the right way and at the right time.”

Nissan is conducting autonomous mobility service research globally in Japan (Nissan Research Centre), the UK (Nissan Technical Centre Europe), and the US (Nissan Advanced Technology Centre, Silicon Valley).

This includes the latest 'Easy Ride' Serena AD vehicle testing in Yokohama, Japan, where the company is aiming to launch autonomous mobility services.