The car that will drive itself anywhere, in any weather

Project CORTEX will take self-driving cars off-road, ensuring they are able to cope in any weather condition: dirt, rain, ice, snow or fog.

As part of the project, a so-called '5D' technique combining acoustic, video, radar, light detection and distance sensing (LiDAR) data is being engineered.

Instant access to this combined data improves the car's awareness of the environment it is operating in. JLR says machine-learning enables the self-driving car to behave in an increasingly sophisticated way, allowing it to handle any weather condition on any terrain.

Chris Holmes, connected and autonomous vehicle research manager at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “It’s important that we develop our self-driving vehicles with the same capability and performance customers expect from all Jaguars and Land Rovers.

"Self-driving is an inevitability for the automotive industry and ensuring that our autonomous offering is the most enjoyable, capable and safe is what drives us to explore the boundaries of innovation. CORTEX gives us the opportunity to work with some fantastic partners whose expertise will help us realise this vision in the near future.”

Jaguar Land Rover is developing fully- and semi-automated vehicle technologies, offering customers a choice of the level of automation, while maintaining an enjoyable and safe driving experience. This project forms part of the company’s vision to make the self-driving car viable in the widest range of real-life, on- and off-road driving environments and weather.

CORTEX is a 30-month project part of the connected and autonomous research funding announced in March and aims to develop the necessary through algorithm development, sensor optimisation and physical testing on off-road tracks in the UK.

The University of Birmingham, with its world leading research in radar and sensing for autonomous platforms, and machine learning experts Myrtle AI have also joined the project.

The new project aims to develop cars that reach the top levels of autonomy, defined as:

Level 0 - No Automation: There is no automation, the driver is in sole control of the vehicle.

Level 1 - Driver Assistance: The driver has assistance for one function eg cruise control.

Level 2 - Partial Automation: The driver has assistance for two functions eg speed and steering such as Traffic Jam Assist.

Level 3 - Conditional Automation: The car undertakes normal driving functions autonomously in a specific environment but the driver may be required to retake control if the environment is too challenging.

Level 4 - High Automation: The car can operate independently in specific environments such as urban environments or motorways, without any driver intervention.

Level 5 - Full Automation: No human control of the vehicle is needed. The vehicle can complete a journey without any human intervention.