Just a day after a man from Whitby was banned for driving with both hands
off the wheel
, BMW commences a global unveiling of its new autonomous tech... using a man with both hands off the wheel. More than that, he’s oversteering with no hands.
Works in a 6 Series as well
Under the 'ActiveAssist' banner, BMW aims to improve the safety of personal transport and 'make a significant contribution to bringing the vision of accident-free mobility closer'. Obviously, the clearest way to indicate this is to show a man in a sideways car making the globally recognised 'look, no hands!' gesture.
In all seriousness though, ActiveAssist does seem another step towards autonomous cars. It uses sensors to detect changing grip levels and so can follow a set course regardless of the surface conditions, so say BMW. The no hands skid is the result of the new function adding 'active and precisely calculated steering inputs' on top of the brake and throttle applications when required. As can be seen in the video as well, this is proper oversteer; no small wiggles here, the 2 Series is fully sideways.
Looks like the present, drives like the future?
Therefore understeer is dialled out by winding off steering lock and slowing down. Oversteer is countered through 'using a carefully gauged combination of countersteering and brake inputs'. This is permissible thanks to electric steering; and you thought a lack of feel was the big problem...
Combined with 360-degree camera and radar, ActiveAssist is capable of entirely independent driving right up to and beyond the limit of grip and in any conditions. Indeed, a prototype using this tech has already covered over 9,000 miles in testing.
BMW says the next step for ActiveAssist will be a fleet trial for highly automated driving in 2015, a similar test to those carried out with the Mini E and BMW ActiveE a few years ago. The direct result of those was the recently launched i3; are we that far away from an autonomous BMW?
