Driverless car will take UK road trip in 2019 after learning from humans

A driverless car will embark on a 200-mile road-trip across the UK in 2019, including complex country roads and high-speed roundabouts.

The HumanDrive project is a collaboration between Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Cranfield University and others. The car will be fed with data from human drivers collected in a simulator. It will start its journey in December 2019, with the UK government aiming to get driverless cars on the road by 2021.  

“Low-carbon and self-driving vehicles are the future and they are going to drive forward a global revolution in mobility,” said Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark. “Trailblazing projects like the HumanDrive project will play a vital role helping us deliver on that ambition.”

Mark Westwood, technical director of the Transport Systems Catapult, which is also involved in the project said that UK roads had particular challenges. “They are different from American roads, with roundabouts and demanding country lanes. These are really testing environments,” he said. “This project is about advancing the state of the art and trying to do something more demanding. The control system will learn to drive like a human.”

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