The North American car manufacturer Cadillac plans to make its semi-autonomous drive tech named Super Cruise available for its entire vehicle range starting in 2020. The feature is currently only supported by the CT6 flagship sedan model.
Super Cruise relies on a front-mounted LIDAR rangefinder, GPS navigation and a panoramic arrangement of cameras to drive the vehicle in semi-autonomous mode.
The system takes over control of the braking, gear switching and steering, but it is called “semi-automatic” for a reason: it isn’t perfect, so the driver must be ready to resume control at all times.
The company also plans to introduce another feature, called V2X, to its entire product range starting in 2023. V2X scans the area up to 300 meters (~1,000 ft) ahead of the car for other traffic participants and obstacles, providing useful information about congestions, traffic lights, road maintenance works, and traffic signs.
Volvo actually has a feature like this, too, but it only communicates data between Volvo passenger cars and trucks. Once a Volvo vehicle is found standing in a potentially dangerous spot of the road (a curve, a tunnel entrance or in the middle of the road), other cars receive a warning. Planned improvements include fog, rain and slippery road warnings, among other things.
Photo: automobilemag.com