Nissan Using SAM System to Provide Autonomous Vehicles With Extra Guidance

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Driverless cars are built to handle a variety of situations, but there are some instances where they still need guidance from a human. Nissan’s Seamless Autonomous Mobility (SAM) system is designed to provide that guidance for autonomous vehicles when the circumstances deem it necessary for a human to override technology.

The way that the SAM system works is pretty simple. When a driverless vehicle encounters an unexpected situation, the vehicle would request assistance from a command center. A “mobility manager” would handle the request for assistance and diagnose the situation using vehicle images and sensor data (streamed over a wireless network). The manager would then decide what the necessary actions are, and create a safe path, around wherever the issue area is, for the vehicle to continue on during its journey. Once out of the area of the initial issue, the vehicle would resume its autonomous functionality.

While one vehicle is being provided assistance, other autonomous vehicles in the area are in constant communication with SAM. Once a mobility manager has helped solve an issue, the solution to the issue is sent, via the SAM system, to the other autonomous vehicles.

SAM is an adaptation from NASA’s Visual Environment for Remote Virtual Exploration (VERVE) system, which is used to monitor and guide interplanetary robots like the Mars rovers. VERVE allows supervisors at NASA to draw up routes for the robots to follow when they run into difficulties within the environment in space, the same way mobility managers do for SAM, only on earth. 

From a release on Nissan’s website, Eugene Tu, Center Director at the NASA Ames Research Center, says, “this is not only a demonstration of the transfer of space technology to industry, but also the application of their research back to our space technology, with additional uses for our unmanned aircraft systems research.”

“This is a perfect example of technology literally driving exploration and enabling future space missions.”

Nissan performed a demonstration of the SAM technology in action at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

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