Nissan and NASA using SPACE technology for autonomous vehicle fleets

Nissan and NASA are extending their collaboration to develop technology to manage fleets of autonomous vehicles using artificial intelligence from Space projects.

When you think of NASA, you think of ‘Space’ missions and astronauts, huge rockets and the moon. And you wonder, beyond the fascination of exploration, what is the point?

But Space exploration has produced many technologies which have filtered in to our everyday lives, from LEDs, Artificial limbs and Ant-Icing for Planes to improvements to Tyres, improved Baby Food and even Cordless Vacuums.

Now, technology from Space will help Nissan develop better technology for autonomous vehicles, as Nissan extends its collaboration with NASA.

The collaboration between NASA and Nissan has been extended as the car maker works to develop technology to manage fleets of autonomous vehicles, following the development of Nissan Seamless Autonomous Mobility (SAM).

SAM was built from technology NASA developed for their ‘Rover’ vehicles as they move around unpredictable landscapes in Space, and it’s being used to manage autonomous vehicles on Earth.

It’s part of a the Nissan Intelligent Mobility Project, a project with three workstreams – Intelligent Drive, Intelligent Power and Intelligent Integration – with SAM a major milestone in Intelligent Integration to seamlessly integrate autonomous vehicles in to urban environments.

Eugene Tu, NASA Ames Director, said:

One of NASA’s strategic goals is to transfer the technology developed to advance NASA mission and program objectives to broader commercial and social applications.

Using NASA’s work in robotics to accelerate the deployment of autonomous mobility services is a perfect example of how the considerable work required to advance space exploration can also pioneer advances here on Earth

As the collaboration with NASA moves forward, the SAM Platform will be further developed and a revised and improved version will see Nissan demonstrating it on public roads in Silicon Valley.