Nissan looks to help drivers see hidden obstacles

Nissan has developed safety technology that it says will help drivers see hidden or obscured obstacles.

Designed to combine the digital universe with the physical one, ‘Invisible-to-Visible’ – or I2V – merges data from 360-degree sensors with data from the cloud, enabling the car to show the driver their surroundings, pointing out hazards and even predicting what’s coming next, showing what might be behind a building or around a bend.

It will go on show at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, and project engineer Tetsuro Ueda explained: “Simply put, the ‘metaverse’ is the virtual universe. Sensor data, cloud data and artificial intelligence live in the digital world, and their communication language is binary.

“However, humans can’t understand what’s being communicated just by looking at the binary data. I2V technology merges the digital world and the real world to a new level of connectivity that connects cars to the metaverse.”

Local data about physical surroundings is collected by on-board sensors and combined with global data about transport infrastructure from the cloud. “These allow the artificial intelligence to drive the car. When the car processes the data and visualises it, the driver feels at ease and can trust the car,” said Ueda.

Other data can be presented to the driver via various methods. Nissan’s examples include a floating avatar that acts as navigator, as well as superimposed road instructions and voice warnings.

The system can even display animated local guides to show drivers around unfamiliar cities and call on cloud data to figure out when and where a parking space might become available.

CES runs from January 8 to 11.