Jaguar Land Rover develops self-learning smart car

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is developing an intelligent car that learns a driver’s techniques to prevent them becoming distracted while controlling the vehicle. Importantly, it adapt and learns a drivers lifestyle and driving habits.

The intelligent car’s smart assistant recognises the driver by their smartphone or tablet and takes notice of how a driver adjusts mirrors, steering wheel or seats, so when they unlock the car, it will adjust the relevant controls for them.

“The aim of our self-learning technology is to minimise driver distraction, which will help reduce the risk of accidents,” says JLR director of research and technology Wolfgang Epple.

“Presenting the driver with information just at the right time whilst driving will reduce both cognitive distraction and the need for the driver to look away from the road to scroll through phone lists, or adjust mirrors, temperature or seat functions while on the road.”

JLR’s tech also monitors your lifestyle and can remind you of your habits – such as your drive to work or remembering your child’s sports kit on PE day via the integrated calendar. At the set time, it will program the SatNav and, if relevant, find the fastest route there, taking into account congestion.

If it’s snowing outside, the car will change the temperature accordingly and if you’ve just been to the gym, for example, it’ll make sure the temperature cools you down after your workout.

Habits will be monitored too. If, for example, you like to activate cruise control when on a motorway, it’ll set this up automatically next time you’re driving around the same motorway.

“This is important because in the future customers will still want an emotional connection and a thrilling drive – with the ability to drive autonomously when required….up until now most self-learning car research has only focused on traffic or navigation prediction,” says Epple.

“We want to take this a significant step further and our new learning algorithm means information learnt about you will deliver a completely personalised driving experience and enhance driving pleasure.”

The smart assistant will be integrated into future JLR models, although a timeline hasn’t yet been announced.

Some of the features included in the self-learning car concept:

• Vehicle personalisation – climate, seat, steering wheel, mirrors and infotainment settings.
• Destination prediction – automatic destination entry to navigation system based on historical usage.
• Fuel assist – suggests fuel stations which have the driver’s preferred brand and location, based on historical usage. The car will let you know if you have enough fuel before long journeys the day before you travel.
• Predictive phone call – predicts who you are likely to call in a certain situation.
• Passenger awareness – will activate passenger preferred infotainment settings and personal climate zones.
• Intelligent notifications – based on traffic situation, the car can alert people that you will be late or provide relevant contextual updates such as flight delays on your drive to the airport.
• Auto adaptive cruise control (AACC) – when AACC is activated, the car applies the distance setting and acceleration profile it has learned when the driver is driving the vehicle.