We expand our cloud solution to create new possibilities for tomorrow’s autonomous cars

For an autonomous car to know what distance it must keep to the car in front of it, it needs information about the current road conditions. If the vehicle is also aware of the road surface quality, risks are reduced even further. NIRA Dynamics’ software Road Surface Information, and the cloud solution Cloud by NIRA, enable just that – and now, in cooperation with Infocar, the company is taking the next step in the rollout of the solution.

Road Surface Information continuously monitors the quality of the road surface, detecting changing road conditions, pits and pot-holes, and different levels of road roughness. Because the software makes use of the car’s existing sensors to draw conclusions about the road conditions, no additional hardware is required, making it a cost-efficient solution.

In order to meet the growing interest in advanced driver assistance features, the software has been further developed to be able to collect relevant road data via the car’s ODB interface. Last winter, approximately 10 000 kilometers of road data were gathered this way, and in the summer of 2016, NIRA, in cooperation with Infocar AB, will be taking the next step in their data collection. The collection rate then increases to approximately 24 000 kilometers of road data.

Thanks to the NIRA Cloud Solution, this data can be used by drivers, driver assistance systems and road authorities. It can also be used as real-time weather-based navigation data. In the future, this data will also help contribute to safer self-driving cars.