Nissan ProPilot Technology

The New Nissan Leaf to feature fully autonomous parking?

The much anticipated 2018 Nissan Leaf EV, which will be out this September, will feature the new ProPilot Park technology. Now, all you have to do is drive up to the parking spot of your choice, hold down the button, and the car parks itself!

There is a key difference between ProPilot Park and other parking assist systems in production cars. With other parking assist systems, you have to work the pedals while the car does the steering. The ProPilot Park is fully autonomous and all that is required is for you to hold down a button.

Another unique feature of ProPilot is SAM which stands for "Seamless Automous Technology." SAM is supported by human technicians who solve problems that a ProPilot-equipped car can't figure out on its own such as traffic patterns or construction. An example of SAM in action would be in a situation where road construction is blocking the vehicle's normal path. A typical autonomous system would just avoid unusual maneuvers to pass the construction site even if it's safe to do so. With SAM, the vehicle will come to a stop and contact a technician at the command center. The technician will have access to the vehicle's various data points such as GPS location, LIDAR imagery, Camera shots, etc. The technician will then analyze the data and map out a safe alternative route for the vehicle to follow. All of this would be done without any interaction with the driver. Although, Nissan has yet to announce when SAM will launch, but claims it'll be soon.

These are just two examples of the many autonomous driving technologies Nissan plans to roll out in four phases. The first phase is the ability to autonomously drive on a single lane on a highway. This was launched with JDM Serena minivan last July. In 2018 (second phase), Nissan plans to tackle multi-lane highways with the capability to change lanes. The third phase would arrive in 2020 with Nissan's self driving cars being able to handle city streets. By 2023 (fourth phase), Nissan plans to reach fully autonomous capabilities.

Content courtesy: The Drive, MotorTrend