Opel Fully-Autonomous Prototype To Debut In September 2018

The first brand from PSA Automobiles' portfolio to receive fully autonomous technologies might not be French. Peugeot is starting tests of a self-driving 3008 prototypes in Singapore this September, while DS will soon offer only some semi-autonomous systems, such as self-parking and a system monitoring the vehicle's position on the road, for its flagship DS 7 Crossback SUV. Meanwhile, Opel, now also part of PSA's family, is developing its own technology for completely autonomous highway driving.

The brand is part of "Ko-HAF – Kooperatives hochautomatisiertes Fahren", a German project researching cooperative highly automated driving, which began in June 2015 and will end in November 2018. The culmination of the project will be the demonstration of an Opel autonomous prototype in real motorway traffic, planned for September 2018.

Opel's role in the project is to work on the computerized maps and the process of disengaging the car from the automated driving condition, thus returning control to the driver. Another focus for the company is to develop a software and a system of sensors to detect and classify the driver's actions while the car is driving automatically.

The final goal for the engineers from Russelsheim will be to create a prototype that can automatically enter a motorway and merge with the traffic, drive on the motorway including overtaking, and finally exit it automatically.

Given the complexity of the system, the number of kilometers required for validation in real life testing would rise to "unfeasible levels," the company says. That's why Opel is working on a new test strategy which will "replace real life testing with simulations as much as possible." Simply said, computers will test the computers that will drive our future cars. Lovely!