Nissan's SAM Self-Driving Tech Uses Humans As A Backup

Jan 06, 2017 07:10 AM EST | Lasitha

Nissan has plans of making it big at the self-driving cars segment. The company has as many as 10 autonomous-capable models due by 2020, which includes the next Leaf. However, the CEO, Carlos Ghosn, stated that the tech can't cover every situation.

There is a solution to fill that gap and that is the Seamless Autonomous Mobility system (SAM). If there are situations that the car's sensors and cameras detect which it has not been programmed for, (like a policeman directing traffic via hand signals), it will come to a stop and request help from a remote command center.

After this, a mobility manager observes the data and images provided by the car and then decide on the appropriate action and draw a safe path for the car to follow. After sorting this, the car is released to resume self-driving, and the idea is that with enough incidents, autonomous systems can eventually learn how to handle the unexpected on their own, reported Engadget.

"No matter how powerful it is, we always find a case where the car will be stuck. That's what we're learning from NASA," stated Ghosn. It is evident that Nissan got the idea from NASA, where its Visual Environment for Remote Virtual Exploration (VERVE) software operates in a similar way, reported Tech News Now.

"Our goal is to change the transportation infrastructure...What we are doing at Nissan is finding a way so that we can have this future transportation system not in 20 years or more, but now," said Maarten Sierhuis, the Nissan Research Center director (and former NASA scientist.) Nissan visualizes SAM for all cars. It does not see it to be confined to the ones that Nissan makes.

If the technology can prove its worth, then it will revolutionize the way in which self-driven cars are seen. With zero human intervention, which is the vision, users can then say that there will be almost no accident in the future.

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