Land Rover, the brand famous for its off-road credentials, has announced it is working on plans for an automated version of their 4x4.

Named Project CORTEX, in what is seen as a world-first, the company is investing millions of pounds to develop a self-driving car capable of all-terrain off-roading.

The project will use a ‘5D’ technique which wll combine acoustic, video, radar, light detection and distance sensing, nicknamed LiDAR, which provides data to the car’s on-board computer in real-time.

"It’s important that we develop our self-driving vehicles with the same capability and performance customers expect from all Jaguars and Land Rovers,” said Jaguar’s Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Research Manager, Chris Holmes.

"Self-driving is an inevitability for the automotive industry and ensuring that our autonomous offering is the most enjoyable, capable and safe is what drives us to explore the boundaries of innovation.

"CORTEX gives us the opportunity to work with some fantastic partners whose expertise will help us realise this vision in the near future."

The UK has been one of the leading nations in the development of driverless cars and Jaguar are keen to be at the forefront of the technology. JLR announced last week that its venture capital arm had invested in an online 3D mapping tool aimed at those who love the outdoors. Jaguar has also committed to providing 20,000 ‘premium’ autonomous electric cars to Google’s self-driving arm, Waymo.

In addition Jaguar are already testing autonomous road vehicles in Milton Keynes and the West Midlands.

The development of the CORTEX project is being run in partnership with The University of Birmingham and machine learning experts Myrtle AI.

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