Nissan and NASA say they have formed a five-year research and development partnership to advance autonomous vehicle systems and prepare for commercial application of the technology.
Researchers from Nissan’s US Silicon Valley Research Centre and NASA’s Ames Research Centre at Moffett Field, California, will focus on autonomous drive systems, human-machine interface solutions, network-enabled applications, software analysis and verification, all involving hardware and software used in road and space applications.
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The two organisations will test a fleet of zero-emission autonomous vehicles at Ames to demonstrate proof-of-concept remote operation of autonomous vehicles for the transport of materials, goods, payloads and people.
For NASA, these tests parallel the way it operates planetary rovers from a mission control centre. The first vehicle of the fleet should be testing at the facility by the end of 2015.
“The work of NASA and Nissan – with one directed to space and the other directed to earth – is connected by similar challenges,” said Nissan president and CEO Carlos Ghosn.
“The partnership will accelerate Nissan’s development of safe, secure and reliable autonomous drive technology that we will progressively introduce to consumers beginning in 2016 up to 2020.”
