Acura’s decision to unveil its second-generation self-driving vehicle is less a showing of what it can do now than what it has planned.
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Acura has revealed its second generation automated development vehicle in California, a modified version of the RLX Sport Hybrid SH-AWD™ luxury performance sedan.
The vehicle is fitted with new radar, Lidar, GPS sensors, higher-performance central processing and graphics-processing units and more intelligent software algorithms, plus cabling, heat management and circuitry that is beyond what was on a previous RLX with Honda’s first-gen automated technology. Packed with more features, RXL’s software is also upgraded to what the luxury automaker company described as more intelligent software algorithms. It’s also got updated RADAR, camera, Global Positioning System and higher performance GPUs and CPUs as well as what Acura is calling “more intelligent software algorithms to support more complex testing scenarios”.
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Naturally, being the flagship of Honda and Acura’s model range, the RLX/Legend would be the likely recipient of such an (expensive) piece of hardware. Acura is working out its RLX at GoMentum Station near San Francisco, a 5,000-acre facility with 20 miles of paved roadways designed specifically for testing autonomous and connected cars. “Test engineers (can) validate information from each signal with a higher degree of accuracy than can be obtained from any one of the sensors independently”. This testing program is aligned with the company’s goal to introduce automated driving technologies around 2020. The equipped radar also works to spot the speed and position of the object near it, while the car’s camera has a sharp recognition on the size and shapes of the car’s surroundings.
