JLR to take autonomous vehicles to UK streets by end of 2017

A Range Rover Sport fitted with prototype technology that enables it to operate autonomously through a city, obeying traffic lights, T-junctions and roundabouts last week completed final off-road trials before tests on live roads.

These tests will initially take place on closed roads before evolving into open-road trials and demonstrations by summer 2018.

The company said that last week’s trials, at the Horiba Mira proving ground in the West Midlands, bring JLR a step closer to ‘level four’ autonomy within the next decade.

Level four autonomous vehicles are capable of carrying out the entire driving task for specific environments such as towns and cities without any driver intervention.

JLR’s prototype technology is called Autonomous Urban Drive and allows passengers to select a location and then the Range Rover Sport research vehicle will decide the best route.

Tony Harper, director of engineering research at JLR said: “The automotive landscape is changing faster today than ever before.

“As a technology company, our innovation is continuous and our cars of the future will become more capable, cleaner, more connected, more desirable and smarter.”

Autonomous Urban Drive is being demonstrated as part of the £20m UK Autodrive research and development project that focuses on connected and autonomous innovation.

JLR is working with Ford and Tata Motors European Technical Centre testing connected technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other, as well as to the roadside infrastructure such as traffic lights.

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