Photo: NASA's Ames Research Center
Nissan continues to aim for the stars as the Japanese carmaker is currently testing NASA space technology within its fully autonomous cars.
In January 2015, the Japanese carmaker signed a five-year research and development partnership with NASA to advance autonomous car systems and prepare the technology for commercial use.
Now, one year later, a group of very influential people from Nissan, including Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn and Jose Munoz, chairman of Nissan North America, are back at the Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley for meetings and to analyze the progress of their fully autonomous cars.
The partnership allows researchers to develop and test autonomy algorithms, concepts, and prototypes for a variety of vehicles, from rovers to driverless cars.
After the introductions, the group observed the fully autonomous Nissan LEAF while driving itself across the center. The car is equipped with cameras, sensors, and data networking, and uses software originally created for the K-10 and K-REX planetary rovers to operate autonomously.
The drive demonstrations were supervised by Nissan representatives as well as Ames’ Director Eugene Tu and Associate Director Steven Zornetzer.
According to Tu, “This is not only a demonstration of the transfer of space technology to industry, but also the application of their research back to our space technology with additional uses for our unmanned aircraft systems research here at Ames.” He added that “This is a perfect example of technology literally driving exploration for enabling future space missions.”
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has some big future plans, as it recently announced that it intends to launch more than 10 self-driving cars with autonomous capabilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and China by 2020.
The Alliance not only has the plans but also the resources, with an R&D budget of about $5 billion, research centers in Japan, France, Michigan and California, and large engineering centers in Romania, India, Brazil, Turkey, and China.
Now, one year later, a group of very influential people from Nissan, including Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn and Jose Munoz, chairman of Nissan North America, are back at the Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley for meetings and to analyze the progress of their fully autonomous cars.
The partnership allows researchers to develop and test autonomy algorithms, concepts, and prototypes for a variety of vehicles, from rovers to driverless cars.
After the introductions, the group observed the fully autonomous Nissan LEAF while driving itself across the center. The car is equipped with cameras, sensors, and data networking, and uses software originally created for the K-10 and K-REX planetary rovers to operate autonomously.
The drive demonstrations were supervised by Nissan representatives as well as Ames’ Director Eugene Tu and Associate Director Steven Zornetzer.
According to Tu, “This is not only a demonstration of the transfer of space technology to industry, but also the application of their research back to our space technology with additional uses for our unmanned aircraft systems research here at Ames.” He added that “This is a perfect example of technology literally driving exploration for enabling future space missions.”
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has some big future plans, as it recently announced that it intends to launch more than 10 self-driving cars with autonomous capabilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and China by 2020.
The Alliance not only has the plans but also the resources, with an R&D budget of about $5 billion, research centers in Japan, France, Michigan and California, and large engineering centers in Romania, India, Brazil, Turkey, and China.
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