Nissan Serena to feature ProPILOT

Nissan Motor Co Ltd’s new Serena, scheduled to go on sale in Japan in late August, will come equipped with the company’s ProPILOT autonomous drive technology.

ProPILOT is an autonomous drive technology designed for highway use in single-lane traffic. Nissan is the first Japanese automaker to introduce a combination of steering, accelerator and braking that can be operated in full automatic mode. These systems are controlled based on information obtained through a mono camera equipped with advanced-image processing software.

Once activated, ProPILOT automatically controls the distance between the vehicle and the preceding vehicle, using a speed preset by the driver (between approximately 30km/h and 100km/h). The system also keeps the car in the middle of the highway lane by reading lane markers and controlling steering, even through curves.

Nissan is carrying out intensive studies of driving conditions in various regions so that ProPILOT will be well suited to the conditions in the markets in which it will be launched. The ProPILOT system equipped on the Serena in Japan was developed in pursuit of an easy-to-use technology for highway driving conditions in Japan.

Nissan is proactively working on vehicle intelligence and vehicle electrification to make its corporate visions of ‘Zero Emissions’ and ‘Zero Fatalities’ a reality. Under ‘Nissan Intelligent Mobility’, ProPILOT promotes safety and instills confidence in drivers, and it is part of ‘Nissan Intelligent Driving’.

ProPILOT will be introduced into other vehicles, including the Qashqai in Europe in 2017. There are also plans for the technology to be introduced in the US and China markets. A multi-lane autonomous driving technology will enable automatic lane changes on highways and is planned for introduction in 2018 while autonomous driving on urban roads and in intersections is planned for launch in 2020.