Goal is to have autonomous car ready by 2020.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Japanese automaker Nissan and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration are joining forces to build better autonomous cars.
Nissan Motor Co. and NASA announced their partnership on Thursday at Moffett Federal Field in California. By pooling their resources, Nissan and NASA hope to cultivate technology that can be applied to both commercially sold cars and space rovers on faraway planets.
The two titans of technology intend to develop and test zero-emission autonomous cars between NASA’s Ames Research Center and Nissan’s Silicon Valley research facility, which are located down the road from each other.
“This is a perfect blend of the capability of what the robotics folks at NASA Ames have and the autonomy that we bring,” explained Maarten Sierhuis to Wired magazine. Sierhuis serves as the director of Nissan’s Silicon Valley research center, and formerly spent 10 years as a NASA senior scientist.
Both Nissan and NASA have a great deal to learn from each other in the coming years. The automaker is already testing technology that enables cars navigate urban environments unassisted, which NASA can apply to future rovers that need to navigate alien environments unassisted. Conversely, NASA can certainly teach Nissan about the nuts and bolts of high-grade engineering, but it can also help the automaker explore the relationship between man and machine.
“When we talk about autonomous drive, we’re transforming the relationship between the driver and the car from a master to slave, to a kind of partner,” Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn told Wired. “It’s a fundamental change that drivers must get used to, and a good human machine interface will be key to making that happen.”
Nissan is not the only car company hoping to win the race to build a consumer-viable, driverless car. Toyota, General Motors, and Ford all have their own projects, while the irrepressible Google has been quietly working on their own autonomous vehicles for years. Nissan’s goal is to have a road-ready autonomous car ready by 2020.