Audi claims that its latest research car, the Audi A7 piloted driving concept “Jack”, is now even more adept at operating, just like a human driver. Its autonomously performed motorway driving manoeuvres and is now even more proficient at showing consideration for other road users. “Jack” exhibits a driving style that is adaptive to the given situation, safe and especially interactive. Audi calls it a research car with social competence.
Audi is continually advancing the development of its piloted driving test car. Autonomous system is now driving more naturally. This is illustrated by the way it deals with hazardous points on the road, passes trucks with a slightly wider lateral gap and signals upcoming lane changes by activating the indicator and moving closer to the lane. The cooperative attitude of “Jack” is especially apparent when other vehicles want to merge into its lane on the motorway. Here, based on the selected driving profile, the test car decides whether to accelerate or brake, depending on which is best suited to handling the traffic situation harmoniously for all road users.
The brain of piloted driving is the central driver assistance controller, or zFAS. It uses high-performance processors to evaluate the signals from all sensors in real-time and create a model of the car’s surroundings. This model represents the prevailing traffic situation as accurately as possible. It lets the zFAS calculate upcoming manoeuvres in advance, taking a look into the future, so to speak.
Audi has been demonstrating the next steps in piloted driving on public roads too, for example under real traffic conditions on American highways from the west coast to Las Vegas.
The future is networked – this is especially applicable to piloted driving. In the future, cars and the infrastructure will communicate with one another more intensively. Common information interfaces are an important condition for this, so that the benefits of piloted driving can be better utilised on motorways. The digital test site on the A9 autobahn – announced by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure – offers ideal conditions for evaluating and further developing future functions and concepts together with representatives of the Free State of Bavaria, the automotive industry and the IT industry. The brand with the four rings can once again probe the technical possibilities of Car-to-X communication here – under real road conditions and in real time.
Car-to-Car communication between automobiles that are travelling on the same routes can report on hazardous points and accidents in real time. The driving speeds of other road users operating with piloted driving are then automatically adjusted to the potential hazard.
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