Crédits: motorsixty le 21 janv. 2012
BMW announced their ConnectedDrive
Connect (CDC) semi-autonomous driving system back in August, but the
company has just released a new video of it in action.
While the clip
is in German, it shows some fairly relaxed engineers taking their hands
off the steering wheel and letting the car drive itself. As we have
previously reported, CDC works on pre-mapped highways by pinpointing the
car's position and the location of surrounding objects. Once everything
has been determined, CDC controls the braking and acceleration like an
advanced cruise control system.
However, when the car senses it
is behind a slowpoke, it looks for an open lane where it can safely
merge at speeds up to 130 km/h (81 mph). If an opening is found, the
system will steer the vehicle into that lane, pass the slower vehicle
and return to its original lane.
As Dr. Nico Kaempchen explains, "Our
main challenge was to develop algorithms that can handle entirely new
situations. In principal, the system works on all freeways that we have
mapped out beforehand with [a] centimeter accuracy." He goes on to say
CDC ensures the car "adheres to all traffic laws" and sticks to the
speed limit.