Honda will make its Legend Hybrid EX car available from Friday with the so-called Sensing Elite safety system. This makes automated driving functionalities available that fall within the level 3 level of autonomy. For now, this will only be available in Japan.
The Sensing Elite safety system revolves around the Traffic Jam Pilot system, among other things. Honda received approval for this from a Japanese ministry in November last year, so that it can officially be called a level 3 system. The car manufacturer says that this system actually drives the car instead of the driver, although this is limited to certain circumstances, such as when driving in traffic jams and therefore low speeds.
The system can then take care of acceleration, braking and steering, while also monitoring the immediate environment of the car. The car will autonomously drive, stop and start moving again, maintaining a certain distance that matches the speed of the vehicle in front of the Honda Legend. When this system is active, the driver is allowed to do other things, such as watching TV or DVD images on the central screen or controlling the navigation route, Honda writes. The car can change lanes and maintain a lane by itself.
The vehicle’s position and road conditions are determined using three-dimensional maps and navigation systems such as GPS. The environment of the vehicle is scanned in 360 degrees by means of external sensors. In addition, the driver’s status is monitored by a camera in the interior. Honda says the system has been tested over 1.3 million highway miles and about ten million patterns of realistic scenarios have been simulated during development.
At level 3 autonomy, autonomous driving takes quite serious forms. According to the definition of the Society of Automotive Engineers, there are six levels of autonomous driving, where level 0 represents a complete absence of autonomy, while level 5 means that a car can drive completely autonomously in all cases. At level 0 to 2, the human driver has to monitor the driving environment, but from level 3 the system takes care of that. Level 3 is therefore seen as the first level at which one can actually speak of autonomy. Levels 4 and 5 go even further. There is no longer any need for the driver to intervene.
Honda previously had its Pro Pilot Assist system, which equates to a level 2 system on the autonomy scale. This system can automatically manage speed and steering, but drivers still need to be constantly alert to manually take control. Tesla’s Autopilot and General Motors’ Super Cruise system are also classified under Level 2 autonomy.
Image of the Honda Legend Hybrid, on which the system is not present.