Skip to main content

Nissan to lead human driving style AV project in the UK

Nissan’s European Technical Centre will lead a 30-month Autonomous Vehicle trial on UK country roads, high speed roundabouts, A-Roads and motorways with live traffic and different environmental conditions. Called the HumanDrive project, it will also emulate a natural human driving style with the intention of providing an enhanced experience for its occupants. The artificial driver model that controls perception and decision making will pilot the vehicle, and will be developed using artificial intelligence
February 2, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

838 Nissan’s European Technical Centre will lead a 30-month Autonomous Vehicle trial on UK country roads, high speed roundabouts, A-Roads and motorways with live traffic and different environmental conditions. Called the HumanDrive project, it will also emulate a natural human driving style with the intention of providing an enhanced experience for its occupants.

The artificial driver model that controls perception and decision making will pilot the vehicle, and will be developed using artificial intelligence technologies. The system will be subjected to testing using a range of facilities including, simulation, hardware in the loop, private test track and small sections of public roads before its full deployment.

HumanDrie is subsidized by the government’s £100m ($142m) intelligent mobility fund, which is administered by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and delivered by Innovate UK. It is also partly funded by industry.

In addition, the study will draw on the expertise from a range of organisations such as Hitachi and Transport Systems Catapult as well as Cranfield University, University of Leeds, Horiba Mira, Atkins, Aimsum, Sbd Automotive and Highways England.

Greg Clark, business and energy secretary, said: “Low carbon and self-driving vehicles are the future and they are going to drive forward a global revolution in mobility. This revolution has the potential to be worth £52bn [$73bn] to our economy by 2035 and the opportunity to be at the forefront of this change is one we cannot afford to miss.

“Through our Industrial Strategy and the Automotive Sector Deal investment in the development of driverless technology we are committed to working with industry to seize these opportunities. Trailblazing projects like the HumanDrive project will play a vital role helping us deliver on that ambition, with UK businesses and research institutions working with partners from around the world on the disruptive technologies and services of the future.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Cold, hard truths
    February 27, 2012
    By comparison with the snow paralysis which hit North America at the beginning of February, and the conditions endured by much of Northern Europe this last winter, it took only the lightest dusting of snow to bring the UK transport system slipping, sliding and then juddering to a halt in January.
  • Cohda sees interoperability as key to V2X success
    October 11, 2016
    Australian-based Cohda Wireless – one of the leading vendors in the global V2X market – sees the ability of all players to work together as crucial to the success of autonomous vehicles. “Interoperability among a wide range of OEMs, component manufacturers, hardware and software suppliers is critical to the successful implementation of V2X and the future of autonomous vehicles,” said Bernd Luebben, vice president business development with Cohda Wireless Europe GmbH.
  • Jaguar uses PTV microsimulation tool for C/AV concepts
    April 10, 2019
    Jaguar Land Rover is using PTV’s Vissim, a multi-modal microsimulation tool to simulate and test connected and automated vehicle (C/AV) concepts. Vissim can be used for the modelling of multi-modal urban or motorway networks and for testing the design and feasibility of transport infrastructure projects. It can also be used by researchers, vehicle manufacturers, transport planners, traffic engineers and public authorities to help design future transport systems, testing the impact of C/AVs on road network
  • Highways England to deploy three HGV cabs to tackle unsafe driving
    February 13, 2018
    Highways England (HE) and Dawson Rentals have entered a partnership to deploy three unmarked HGV cabs that will patrol motorways and main trunk roads after one was used by Police to help catch over 4,000 dangerous drivers in its first two years. The vehicles come with wide angle cameras which are designed with the intention of capturing unsafe driving behaviour. These cabs allow police officers to film evidence of dangerous driving by pulling up alongside vehicles, whose drivers are then pulled over by