Toyota's new self-driving car testing platform is a highly-modified Lexus LS 600hl, packed with technology to help the Japanese automaker further its twin autonomous vehicle research paths.
Toyota is referring to its new testbed, unveiled today in California, as a "2.0" self-driving car, since the company already has more than a decade of self-driving research under its belt using other vehicles.
Still, the car's autonomous systems aren't very different from the self-driving prototypes of other automakers and tech companies that you'll find roaming the streets of California and Michigan. On the outside are numerous sensors, including Lidar, radar, and camera arrays. Inside, the car's computers can crunch the data from all of the sensors to help it navigate roads that haven't yet been mapped for self-driving cars.
What is somewhat unique about Toyota's autonomous driving research are its simultaneous goals. The company wants to develop fully-autonomous vehicles that require no driver input—which the industry refers to as "level 5 autonomy"—as well as cars that can sometimes drive themselves but whose autonomous systems are designed primarily as a backup for human operators.
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- Toyota Eyes Self-Driving Car by 2020Toyota Eyes Self-Driving Car by 2020
The latter approach will monitor what's going on inside and outside of the vehicle, and intervene when danger or an imminent crash is detected.
"Basically, it is a smart vehicle designed to get smarter over time," Gill Pratt, head of the Toyota Research Institute, said in a statement. "It will learn individual driver habits and abilities and will benefit from shared intelligence from other cars as data gathering, sharing and connectivity technologies advance."
The LS 600hl is an appropriate car to pack with experimental technology, because as Toyota points out, the production version is already full of advanced features like a drive-by-wire interface with no direct mechanical links between the engine, gas pedal, or gearshift.
Relax Toyota Packs Lexus LS 600hl With Self-Driving Tech stories
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