VIDEO: Land Rover plotting off-road autonomy

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has released a new video revealing its semi-autonomous driving aids that will soon help owners of Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles deal with the toughest off-road conditions.

JLR's vision is to offer autonomous driving on any terrain – not just on well-maintained sealed roads. Its upcoming vehicles will feature artificial intelligence so advanced, you will be able to drift off to sleep while your car tackles the Canning Stock Route or the Rubicon Trail.

The short video, demonstrating some of the new technology in action, shows sensors scanning the road ahead to adjust the firm's Terrain Response system to 'arm' the Land Rover all-wheel drive hardware in anticipation of negotiating the rough roads.

On a short stretch of bush track this could mean the sensors detect changes up to five metres ahead to slow the car automatically for a river crossing or bumpy road surface.

Cameras mounted in the windscreen, meanwhile, also are on the look-out for low hanging branches.

Impressively, if you're driving in convoy with another Land Rover, car-to-car communication can warn the next driver of some of the challenges ahead, helping the driver following to select the right Terrain Response setting for ride height. The same communications system can also alert the second driver if the lead car drops a wheel into a hole or slips or struggles while climbing boulders. It thus helps the following driver select a different, safer path.

Finally, the same sensors can also adjust the all-wheel drive and stability settings when driving from a paved road to dirt or gravel, sand or even snow.

Commenting on the new autonomous off-road tech JLR's head of research, Tony Harper said: “We don’t want to limit future highly automated and fully autonomous technologies to tarmac. When the driver turns off the road, we want this support and assistance to continue."

The new technology is claimed to rely on the same cameras, ultrasonic, radar and LIDAR sensors self-driving cars do. Off-road the sensors are accurate down to the width of a tyre.

The overhead clearance system meanwhile, uses two cameras that can be programmed to take account of roof boxes, bicycle racks or roof-mounted spare wheels.

Land Rover has previously talked up its pothole alert technology and with its augmented reality windscreens, which essentially create the illusion of a transparent bonnet, its 4WDs could become, quite literally, fool-proof.

Although JLR hasn't yet confirmed when it expects the technology to be available on its products, the multi-million dollar research project is providing new insights into how tricky off-road trails might be navigated.

"The key enabler for autonomous driving on any terrain is to give the car the ability to sense and predict the 3D path it is going to drive through. This means being able to scan and analyse both the surface to be driven on, as well as any hazards above and to the sides of the path ahead," says Harper.

"This might include car park barriers, tree roots and boulders or overhanging branches, as well as the materials and topography to be driven on," explained Harper.

"This advanced capability would be available to both the driver AND the autonomous car, with the driver able to let the car take control if they were unsure how best to tackle an obstacle or hazard ahead.

"We are already world-leaders in all-terrain technologies: these research projects will extend that lead still further," stated Harper.