When BMW announced its new ‘technological flagship’ in the shape of the iX, a lot of next-gen features were scheduled to make their debuts on it. Some are still on schedule but others have sort of died down. One of them was the advanced driving aids that would put BMW on the map in this regard. We were supposed to get Level 3 autonomous functions on the iX and yet, over the last few months we heard nothing of them, as we’re getting closer to the car’s first deliveries.
BMW may be mum on the topic but they did publish a video recently, showing the BMW iX doing some tasks all by itself. The clip is not very long but it shows the iX driving itself through a car park, parking itself and even going to an automated car wash too, all without a human supervising or behind the wheel. From what we can make out from the video, a command was given to the car via a phone app and then she just set off into the ‘wild’.
We can also notice the sensors positioned throughout the car park, that were probably used by the car to get around. Even so, this is still pretty impressive and falls into the patterns scientists came up with when defining autonomous driving scenarios. Some say that level 5 autonomous driving (where the car simply drives itself, with no human intervention whatsoever) could only become reality in pre-defined areas, decked with thousands of sensors.
It’s something along the lines of what we can see here. This is a pre-defined area with lots of sensors and that’s why the car was able to navigate through it safely. It’s just a demo for now but it does paint a picture of what could happen in the future. However, some heavy investments are needed to make it feasible and safe so I wouldn’t get my hopes up too soon.
https://youtu.be/Cn6Tw5Ilwo0
