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Jaguar Develops Transparent Pillars and "Follow Me" Ghost Car for Nav System

Jaguar Land Rover have just revealed two new prototype technologies we think could make life a lot easier for us motorists.
Jaguar Develops Transparent Pillars and "Follow Me" Ghost Car for Nav System 5 photos
Photo: Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar Develops Transparent Pillars and "Follow Me" Ghost Car for Nav SystemJaguar Develops Transparent Pillars and "Follow Me" Ghost Car for Nav SystemJaguar Develops Transparent Pillars and "Follow Me" Ghost Car for Nav SystemJaguar Develops Transparent Pillars and "Follow Me" Ghost Car for Nav System
They're both updates for the '360 Virtual Urban Windscreen’ research, which also gave us a transparent bonnet for the Discovery Sport, useful for when the SUV wants to avoid rocks on offroad courses.

Speaking of transparent, Jaguar wants to use a similar projector system to make the roof pillars transparent. Basically, screen would be embedded in the surface of each pillar inside the car and would take a live video feed from cameras covering the angles outside the car usually obscured in the blind spots created by the A, B and especially the C-pillars.

No more blind spots, no more weird obstacles you couldn't see at the mall. Brilliant!

But we think the other technology is even better. It's called "Follow-Me" and projects a ghost car on the screen which drives towards your selected destination. So instead of looking at the navigation, you just follow that car on every road it travels.

Often times, there's a little lag in the navigation screen, so exiting a roundabout we've never visited before results in mistakes being made. "In 100 meters, take the right exit," it says. But there's a million right exits or sometimes none at all.

Jaguar believes both systems will drastically improve safety, as they will ensure the driver's eyes are on the road, not down at the navigation screen.

Dr Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology, Jaguar Land Rover, said: “Our ultimate aim is to reduce road accidents and enhance the urban driving experience. The Jaguar Land Rover research team is developing this technology to improve visibility and to give the driver with the right information at the right time. If we can keep the driver’s eyes on the road ahead and present information in a non-distracting way, we can help drivers make better decisions in the most demanding and congested driving environments.”

“Driving on city streets can be a stressful experience, but imagine being able to drive across town without having to look at road signs, or be distracted trying to locate a parking space as you drive by,” added Dr Epple. “We want to present all of this information on a Heads-Up Display in the driver’s eye-line, so the driver doesn’t have to seek it out for themselves and take their eyes off the road ahead.”

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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