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

IRVINE, Calif. – 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.

*Full list of institutions currently involved: AIST（National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Chuo University, Hiroshima University, The University of Iowa, University of Oxford, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NAIST (Nara Institute of Science and Technology), Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Russian State Scientific Center for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics, Kyushu University, Keio University, Nagoya University, Shinshu University, Tohoku University, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, UC Berkeley, The University of Tokyo, University of Tsukuba, Waseda University, University of Yamanashi

NISSAN INSPIRED BY BEES AND FISH IN DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGY FOR FUTURE MOBILITY

IRVINE, Calif. (August 28, 2013) – Nissan’s engineers have been inspired by the animal kingdom as they develop new technologies that will shape the future of mobility. One of Nissan’s longer term R&D goals is to achieve virtually zero fatalities and serious injuries among occupants of its vehicles. Toru Futami, engineering director of advanced technology and research, said that studying the behavior of animals moving in groups helps engineers understand how vehicles can interact with each other for a safer and more efficient driving environment.

“In our ongoing quest to develop collision-avoidance systems for the next generation of automobiles, we needed to look no further than to Mother Nature to find the ultimate form of collision-avoidance systems in action, in particular, the behavioral patterns of fish.”

The research team created the EPORO (EPisode 0 Robot), utilizing Laser Range Finder (LRF) technology-inspired by the bumblebee’s compound eyes that can see more than 300-degrees-along with other advanced technologies. Six EPORO units communicate among themselves to monitor each other’s positions to avoid collisions as well as be able to travel side-by-side or in single-file, thus exhibiting the behavior of fish swimming in schools.

“In current traffic laws, cars are supposed to drive within the lanes and come to a halt at stop signals, but if all cars were autonomous, the need for lanes and even signals could be gone. We talked about fishes earlier, and fish follow these three rules: Don’t go away too far, don’t get too close and don’t hit each other. Fish form schools with these three rules. A school of fish doesn’t have lines to help guide the fishes, but they manage to swim extremely close to each other. So if cars can perform the same type of thing within a group and move accordingly, we should be able to have more cars operate with the same width roads. This would lead to more cars, but with less traffic congestion,” Futami explained.

Futami added that the EPORO can also communicate with one another at intersections, deciding which would go and which would stop, thus eliminating the need for traffic signals.

Prior to the development of EPORO, Nissan created the Biometric Car Robot Drive, or BR23C, which mimics the uncanny collision-avoidance ability of bumblebees. It was a joint project with the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at Japan’s renowned University of Tokyo.

Inspired by the bee’s compound eyes that can see more than 300-degrees, the Laser Range Finder (LRF) detects obstacles in a 180-degree radius in front of it up to two meters away. The BR23C calculates the distance to the obstacle(s), then immediately sends a signal to a microprocessor, which translates this information and moves or repositions the vehicle accordingly to avoid a collision.

“The split-second it detects an obstacle,” explains Toshiyuki Andou, manager of Nissan’s Mobility Laboratory and principal engineer of the project, “the car robot will mimic the movements of a bee and instantly change direction by turning its wheels at right angles or greater to avoid a collision.”