NASA and Nissan have committed to developing and deploying an autonomous-drive vehicle in 2015.
Researchers from Nissan’s Silicon Valley Research Center and NASA’s Ames Research Center will join forces to demonstrate proof-of-concept remote operation of autonomous vehicles, and produce a prototype for testing before the end of the year.
The announcement comes following the signing of a five-year research and development deal between the United States’ space agency and the Japanese automaker.
“The work of NASA and Nissan – with one directed to space and the other directed to Earth – is directed by similar challenges,” explained Carlos Ghosn, president and CEO of Nissan Motor Company.
“The partnership will accelerate Nissan’s development of safe, secure, and reliable autonomous drive technology that we will progressively introduce to customers beginning in 2016 up to 2020,” he added.
The partners will design autonomous vehicles for the transportation of materials, goods, payloads, and people.
Nissan has set 2020 as its deadline for the commercial introduction of an autonomous vehicle that can navigate in almost any environment, including cities. NASA, meanwhile, will benefit from Nissan’s existing expertise in component technologies for autonomous vehicles, share research to inform the development of vehicular transport applications, and access both prototype systems and test beds for robotic software.
“All of our potential topics of research collaboration with Nissan are areas in which Ames has strongly contributed to major NASA programmes,” commented S Pete Worden, director of the Ames Research Center.
“Ames developed Mars rover planning software, robots on board the International Space Station (ISS), and next-generation air-traffic management systems to name a few. We look forward to applying knowledge developed during this partnership toward future space and aeronautics endeavours,” he said.
Ghosn concluded: “This partnership brings together the best and brightest of NASA and Nissan, and validates our investments in Silicon Valley.”
