Land Rover looks to take autonomous driving off-road
But one of the hidden consequences of a self-driving city is that people will stop getting driver's licenses. Indeed, they'll stop learning to drive altogether in huge numbers. Within a generation or two, driving will be a hobby as eccentric as horse riding.
So, autonomous cars will need to learn the intricacies of off-roading at some point, and Land Rover has begun the process of developing the technology that'll let four-wheel-drives become four-wheel-self-drives with level four and five off-road autonomous capabilities.
The key issues will be topography and surface traction. Land Rover's autonomous SUV project, Cortex, aims to address these issues with a multi-sensor approach, using acoustic, video, radar and LiDAR systems to form a combined picture of what the terrain is doing...