Jaguar Land Rover joins consortium to evaluate safer vehicle solutions.

• Jaguar Land Rover to join a consortium founded by MIT AgeLab, DENSO and Touchstone Evaluations to define and deliver safer vehicle HMI solutions
• The new ‘Advanced Human Factors Evaluator for Automotive Distraction’ (AHEAD) consortium will evaluate the demands on driver workload posed by new human machine interface (HMI) technologies to help manufacturers and suppliers design intuitive, convenient and safe future systems
• The involvement with the AHEAD consortium further strengthens Jaguar Land Rover’s work with leading technology businesses and academia to advance its engineering and design capabilities

Jaguar Land Rover is strengthening its engagement with the world’s leading technology businesses and academic bodies with its involvement in a project that aims to reduce the potential for driver distraction in future vehicle human machine interface (HMI) systems.

By joining the AHEAD (Advanced Human Factors Evaluator for Automotive Distraction) consortium, Jaguar Land Rover will be working with MIT AgeLab, DENSO and Touchstone Evaluations on methods for measuring the demands made on drivers by the latest HMI technologies. This will help to determine new systems that will minimise distraction while delivering convenient, intuitive, engaging and safe operation and meeting potential future industry and regulatory requirements.

The consortium brings together leading researchers, vehicle manufacturers and suppliers to take a new look at how the demands of using voice controls, touchscreens and switchgear can be reliably and effectively measured. AHEAD’s goal is to produce a quantifiable, objective evaluation toolkit that can be used across the industry to support new HMI development. This will improve the effectiveness and reliability of data and help manufacturers and electronics suppliers to produce new interfaces that meet all manufacturer, consumer and regulatory requirements.

Jaguar Land Rover’s involvement in AHEAD is the latest in a series of strategic partnerships and academic collaborations that reinforce its research and development of advanced engineering and design capabilities. This is also the first time Jaguar Land Rover has collaborated on a project with MIT.

Dr Wolfgang Epple, Jaguar Land Rover’s Director of Research and Technology, said: “The opportunities to provide drivers with access to comprehensive and sophisticated information and communication systems while at the wheel continue to increase at an exceptional rate. While our vision is that our customers will benefit from the most effective, engaging and responsive in-car technologies, we have to be sure that they can be accessed and operated intuitively and safely, with the minimum distraction.

“Our work with MIT AgeLab, DENSO and our other partners in AHEAD will put us in the forefront of understanding the workload placed on the driver. This will be of crucial importance in our development of the future systems we want to deliver to keep pace with the rapid expansion of vehicle and communications technologies.”

Doug Patton, Senior Vice President of Engineering at DENSO America, Inc, said: “We know drivers want to be connected while driving, but how do we safely give drivers what they want? To do this we need to evaluate driver workload, but currently there isn’t a quantifiable and objective metrology model in place. Not to mention, there’s a high price tag attached to researching and developing something like this. With that said, forming a consortium will help reach the goal of establishing a common methodology.”

The current methods for evaluating HMI technologies mainly use criteria developed before the introduction of modern systems such as voice controls, touchscreens and multi-function controllers. They also don’t take into account the impact of the driver moving between different modes of use, such as vision, touch, sound, haptics, gesture and cognition. AHEAD aims to make it more feasible to evaluate demands at an early prototype stage, when design changes can be made more easily and effectively, rather than later in the vehicle development process.

MIT AgeLab has taken a lead in using multi-dimensional assessment, measuring physiological, visual attention and performance measures as part of its HMI evaluation. Dr Bryan Reimer, Associate Director of the New England University Transportation Center at MIT and the MIT technical lead for AHEAD, explained: “Physiological measures complement traditional visual attention and performance measures to provide a more complete picture of the interacting demands of modern HMI.”

Nissan will be ready with revolutionary commercially-viable Autonomous Drive in multiple vehicles by the year 2020

• Nissan will be ready with revolutionary commercially-viable Autonomous Drive in multiple vehicles by the year 2020
• Program underway in Japan to construct first dedicated, purpose-built autonomous drive proving ground
• The goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations
• Nissan already working with top universities including MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford and The University of Tokyo*; seeks to broaden collaborative research with other world-class institutions as well as start-ups
• Nissan leveraging 80 years of technical prowess and innovation in new effort to revolutionize vehicle chassis and design for Autonomous Drive

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. today announced that the company will be ready with multiple, commercially-viable Autonomous Drive vehicles by 2020. Nissan announced that the company's engineers have been carrying out intensive research on the technology for years, alongside teams from the world's top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo.

Work is already underway in Japan to build a dedicated autonomous driving proving ground, to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2014. Featuring real townscapes - masonry not mock-ups - it will be used to push vehicle testing beyond the limits possible on public roads to ensure the technology is safe.

Nissan's autonomous driving will be achieved at realistic prices for consumers. The goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations.

"Nissan Motor Company's willingness to question conventional thinking and to drive progress - is what sets us apart," said CEO Carlos Ghosn. "In 2007 I pledged that - by 2010 - Nissan would mass market a zero-emission vehicle. Today, the Nissan LEAF is the best-selling electric vehicle in history. Now I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it."

Nissan is demonstrating the breadth of the capability of its autonomous drive technology for the first time at Nissan 360, a huge test drive and stakeholder interaction event being held in Southern California. Laser scanners, Around View Monitor cameras, as well as advanced artificial intelligence and actuators, have been installed in Nissan LEAFs to enable them to negotiate complex real-world driving scenarios.

Nissan's autonomous driving technology is an extension of its Safety Shield, which monitors a 360-degree view around a vehicle for risks, offers warnings to the driver and takes action if necessary. It is based on the philosophy that everything required should be on board the vehicle, rather than relying on detailed external data. The technology being demonstrated at Nissan 360 means the car could drive autonomously on a highway - sticking to or changing lanes and avoiding collisions - without a map. It can also be integrated with a standard in-car navigation system so the vehicle knows which turns to take to reach its destination.

A revolutionary concept like autonomous drive will have implications throughout the design and construction of cars. For example, collision-avoidance by machines with the capability to react more rapidly and with more complex movements than a human driver will place new demands on the chassis and traction control. Nissan is leveraging 80 years of research and development expertise to create a complete solution for autonomous drive.

A vehicle that looks out for you

Six million crashes in the US per year cost $160 billion and rank as the top reason of death for four- to 34-year olds. And, 93% of accidents in the US are due to human error, typically due to inattention.

With Autonomous Drive Nissan has the technology today to detect and respond to the situations causing this tragedy.

In the future, Autonomous Drive also means less input from the driver; U.S. drivers average 48 minutes per day on the road - hundreds of hours a year that could be used more productively.

For the aged or those with disabilities, Autonomous Drive offers another benefit: true independence and mobility for all.