Jaguar Land Rover trialling a system that projects the direction of travel onto the road ahead of autonomous vehicles. Hmmm.

Technology can be brilliant but sometimes it makes you go…hmmm. Jaguar Land Rover has announced it is developing a system that will project a series of beams onto the road ahead of autonomous vehicles.

The hope, the car maker claims, is that it will help build ‘pedestrian trust’ in autonomous vehicles.

In a statement, JLR said: “These projections, tested on autonomous pods developed by Aurrigo, feature a series of lines or bars with adjustable spacing. The gaps shorten as the pod is preparing to brake before fully compressing at a stop. As the pod moves off and accelerates, the spacing between the lines extends. Upon approaching a turn, the bars fan out left or right to indicate the direction of travel”.

The trial of this new system took place on a “fabricated street scene at a Coventry facility with engineers recording trust levels reported by pedestrians both with and without projections”.

Pete Bennett, Future Mobility Research Manager at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “The trials are about understanding how much information a self-driving vehicle should share with a pedestrian to gain their trust. Just like any new technology, humans have to learn to trust it, and when it comes to autonomous vehicles, pedestrians must have confidence they can cross the road safely. This pioneering research is forming the basis of ongoing development into how self-driving cars will interact with people in the future.”