The Mercedes-Benz Intelligent World Drive is in South Africa, at the fourth leg. The test vehicle – based on the current S-Class series-production saloon – is facing very special driving conditions and situations: different road floors, rural roads crossed by wild animals, intense pedestrian traffic in the cities, interurban risky traffic.
From Stuttgart to Cape Town, where the challenges to be faced are diversified and unexpected: uneven road floors, wildlife crossing or standing on rural roads, masses of pedestrians in urban areas, interurban traffic with unexpected and risky situations. Autonomous and automated vehicles must be able to face these peculiarities and respond in a reliable way. In the fourth stage of the Mercedes-Benz Intelligent World Drive, the test vehicle, based on the S-Class sedan, matches the South African idiosyncrasies and tests reactions to typical situations on the roads of the Western Cape and the city of Cape Town.
Mercedes-Benz inaugurated the Intelligent World Drive at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt last September, with the aim of improving the standard of automatic driving features in relation to national traffic and user experience. The project has expanded worldwide to gather information on real traffic conditions and improve technological solutions. Thus, by January 2018, the tests will allow to acquire complete information on the different traffic situations on five continents, highlighting the limitations of current systems.
The goal of the test in the Western Cape is to detect pedestrian behavior in situations that are completely unusual to Europeans drivers. Above all in the busy city traffic and in the country roads. In addition, the test S-Class is collecting data on country-specific road signs, validating HERE‘s digital map material and testing a prototype of the innovative DIGITAL LIGHT lighting system.
Read Mercedes-Benz’s press release here.
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