CES 2015: Visteon develops autonomous driving simulator

Automotive supplier Visteon is positioning itself at the forefront of autonomous car technology. The firm has been carrying out detailed research into peoples’ attitudes towards self-driving cars and developed a simulator to test their reactions first hand, which it displayed at CES 2015.

Visteon has revealed that potential owners of autonomous cars would expect the car to drive itself for two thirds of its time on the road. The research also revealed that users would expect to be able to work, eat, groom themselves and even sleep behind the wheel with the car in full control.

We had the chance to try the Visteon autonomous driving simulator (above), which can be used by manufacturers to gauge drivers’ reactions to external stimulus while driving, either in manual or autonomous modes.

Also on show at the Visteon stand were the very latest dashboard systems featuring next generation TFT display screens, including one fitted in a current Range Rover Sport.

Visteon has built a dashboard to demonstrate how cars of the future can be upgraded, with new screens and plug-in upgrades to improve processing power. Downloads for software upgrades would then be sent over the latest 4G mobile data connections.

The dash mock-up also featured eye-tracking tech that worked with a gesture control system. The car will sense what area of the display the driver is looking at, allowing a gesture with the driver’s hand to operate a virtual controller.