- Nissan said its next-generation ProPilot advanced driver assistance system is coming in 2027.
- It uses a Lidar sensor, several radars and cameras.
- Wayve’s AI-driven software puts everything together and enables the vehicle to avoid collisions without driver intervention.
Nissan is bringing the next generation of its ProPilot advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) to market in 2027. The suite has multiple sensors that monitor everything around the car and uses Wayve’s AI Driver software that can take control and avoid collisions.
The big selling point of this new system is that it can handle highly complex real-world driving conditions just like a human would, without the need for high-resolution mapping data. Nissan claims that Wayve’s artificial intelligence model was trained on vast amounts of real-world experience, which enables it to react quickly whatever the situation.
All this being said, the next ProPilot will still be a Level 2 system on SAE’s Levels of Driving Automation chart, which means it cannot drive the car without human supervision. Rather confusingly, Nissan said the new ADAS will set a “new standard for autonomous driving with advanced collision avoidance capability.”
For what it’s worth, the demonstration videos posted by Nissan two years ago show a very competent prototype handling all sorts of unwanted scenarios, including avoiding a car that was backing up and then a child that was crossing the road.
The Japanese automaker said that something called ground truth perception technology is the base of the entire system. It uses a bunch of sensors and cameras, including a front-mounted Lidar, nine surround cameras and two long-range radars at the rear. It constantly monitors the car’s surroundings and predicts where an object or a person will move in the environment so that it can avoid it without driver intervention.
Photo by: Nissan
The software is made by the United Kingdom-based startup Wyze, which has raised more than $1.3 billion from heavyweights like Nvidia, Microsoft, SoftBank Group and Uber, according to TechCrunch.
The startup’s development fleet uses Nvidia’s Orin system-on-chip, but according to the company’s co-founder and CEO, Alex Kendall, the software can run on whatever graphics processor a car company already uses. That can keep the costs down and, at the same time, expedite development.
