Jaguar Land Rover takes 'hole' new approach to autonomous driving

Jaguar Land Rover is developing a new system that will enable its cars to spot and avoid potholes, drains, degraded stretches of road surface and even loose manhole covers, while simultaneously alerting other drivers in the area.

The Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport already boast a feature called MagneRide which uses scanners to profile the road surface in search of potholes and other such obstacles so that it can adjust the ride. "By monitoring the motion of the vehicle and changes in the height of the suspension, the car is able to continuously adjust the vehicle's suspension characteristics, giving passengers a more comfortable ride over uneven and damaged road surfaces," explains Dr Mike Bell, Global Connected Car Director, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

However, the new Pothole Alert system would take things further. Combining these existing capabilities with what the company describes as an ‘advanced' forward-facing stereo camera, an equipped car would be able to spot broken drains and loose manhole covers and broken-up asphalt ahead of time.

"At the moment the most accurate data comes from when the car has driven over the pothole or manhole," said Dr Bell. "So we are also researching how we could improve the measurement and accuracy of pothole detection by scanning the road ahead, so the car could predict how severe they are before the vehicle gets near them...We think there is a huge opportunity to turn the information from these vehicle sensors into ‘big data' and share it for the benefit of other road users."

As well as alerting other cars in the area, the data could be used for the greater good of the overall road infrastructure. So JLR is partnering with the city Council of Coventry, UK to understand how this data could be shared with the local authorities for prioritizing road repairs and maintenance. Councillor Rachel Lancaster, Cabinet Member for Public Services at Coventry City Council said: "As part of our ‘Smart Cities' strategy, we will be investigating how JLR's Pothole Alert system could supply us with data in real-time from thousands of connected cars right across our road network. This could give us a very accurate, minute-by-minute picture of damage to road surfaces, manholes and drains in real time."

JLR also plans to use the system as foundation for adding a self-driving element to its future vehicles. "Ultimately, sensing the road ahead and assessing hazards is a key building block on our journey to the autonomous car. In the future, we are looking to develop systems that could automatically guide a car around potholes without the car leaving its lane and causing a danger to other drivers. If the pothole hazard was significant enough, safety systems could slow or even stop the car to minimize the impact," said Dr Bell.