Jaguar Land Rover is taking part in the UK’s first road tests for autonomous and connected vehicles. Real-world testing takes Jaguar Land Rover another step closer to bringing an intelligent vehicle to reality.

As part of the £20 million ($33 million CAD) UK Autodrive project, Jaguar Land Rover is testing a range of research technologies that will allow cars to talk to each other as well as roadside infrastructure, such as traffic lights on the roads of Coventry. The trials will explore how future connected and autonomous vehicles can replicate human behaviour and reactions when driving.

Jaguar Land Rover is developing both fully and semi-autonomous vehicle technologies to offer customers a choice of an engaged or autonomous drive, while maintaining an enjoyable and safe driving experience. The company’s vision is to make the self-driving car viable in the widest range of real-life, on- and off-road driving environments and weather.

“Testing this self-driving project on public roads is so exciting, as the complexity of the environment allows us to find robust ways to increase road safety in the future,” said Nick Rogers, Executive Director, Product Engineering, Jaguar Land Rover. “By using inputs from multiple sensors, and finding intelligent ways to process this data, we are gaining accurate technical insight to pioneer the automotive application of these technologies.”

Rogers added that, “Jaguar Land Rover is proud to be a leader in collaborative research projects for autonomous and connected cars. We are supporting innovative research that will be integral to the infrastructure, technology and legal landscape needed to make intelligent, self-driving vehicles a reality within the next decade.”