Land Rover has given a demonstration on its new autonomous all-terrain technology in its Range Rover Sport.
The new technology is made up of a combination of cameras, ultrasonic sensors, radar and laser scanning to give the car a 360 degree view of the world around it.
The technology works together to predict the 3D path the car will drive through. The sensors can detect surface characteristics, even in rain and snow.
It uses its ultrasonic sensors to reveal surface conditions up to five metres ahead of the vehicle, which allows the car to adjust for gravel, sand, grass and snow.
The sensors can also be used to adjust the vehicle's speed to the upcoming conditions such as bumpy surfaces, standing water and potholes.
Land Rover is looking to build on its go anywhere reputation by developing, what has to now been strictly tarmac-based technology, into an offroad capable self-driver feature.
Tony Harper, Jaguar Land Rover's head of research, said "Our all-terrain autonomy research isn't just about the car driving itself on a motorway or in extreme off-road situations. It's about helping both the driven and autonomous car make their way safely through any terrain or driving situation.
"We don't want to limit future highly automated and fully autonomous technologies to tarmac. When the driver turns off the road, we want this support and assistance to continue."
In conjunction with the new autonomous all-terrain tech, Land Rover also used a convoy of connected Range Rover Sports that shared information such as wheel-slip, location and changes to suspension to help alert the other car to the upcoming conditions, with the hope that in the future this information can help the following vehicles to automatically adjust.
With most mainstream car makers investing in road-based autonomous driving, Land Rover's move to off-road self driving cars is the next logical step, and may in fact prove easier to master without the mass of cars on public roads and mainly stationary hazards.
Land Rover hasn't been shy about investing in off-road focused technology when in 2014 it debuted its Transparent Bonnet on its Land Rover Discovery Vision Concept at the 2014 New York motor show. The invisible bonnet used an array of front mounted cameras to project the image of the road surface on to the bonnet of the car to make the bonnet appear transparent to owners.
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