Nissan Developing Technology to Dramatically Prevent Collisions

Nissan is developing a new driver-assistance technology that uses highly accurate, real-time information about the vehicle's surrounding environment to dramatically enhance collision avoidance.

The goal is to improve the capabilities of ProPILOT-equipped Nissan vehicles and of course tomorrow’s full self-driving cars.

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Called “ground truth perception," the technology fuses information from next-generation, high-performance lidar, radar and cameras. It can detect the shape and distance of objects, as well as the structure of the area surrounding the vehicle, in real time with a high degree of accuracy.

Utilizing this information, it is possible for the vehicle to instantly analyze the current situation, judge and automatically perform the required collision-avoidance manoeuvres, as demonstrated by a prototype at a Nissan facility in Yokohama, Japan:

It’s not just for emergency situations, mind you. Nissan explains the technology can also detect slowed traffic and road obstacles in the distance and execute lane changes accordingly.

Furthermore, it can provide increased support to drivers in areas where detailed map information is not available.

With the help of key partners including Luminar and Applied Intuition, Nissan aims to complete the development of its ground truth perception technology by mid-decade. It will first be available on select new Nissan and Infiniti models, and on virtually every new model by 2030. Obviously, these will look like real cars and not like the experimental machine you see here.