Jaguar Shows Off See-Through Pillars and “Ghost Car” Navigation Future Tech

Historically, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class has been the model which foretells the future of the common automobile – after all, features like ABS, stability control, and adaptive cruise control all made their production car debuts in an S-Class, and typically it usually takes a few years of progress for those innovations to become commonplace across the industry. Jaguar Land Rover might be looking to shake things up in that regard though, as the automaker has just announced the development of a pair of new technologies which have every indication of being as revolutionary as anything we’ve seen from Daimler.

 

 

First up we have the 360 Degree Virtual Urban Windscreen System. Demonstrated in an XJ sedan, the system uses a combination of cameras and display screens mounted on the A, B, and C pillars in the car to create the effect of a see-through surface, displaying what’s directly behind the pillar on the screen affixed to it. According to the video, the system seems to work fairly autonomously – if, for instance, the driver looks over their shoulder to change lanes, the system will automatically engage, making the B-pillar blind spot appear to vanish while the driver verifies whether there is another vehicle occupying that space.

 

“"Our ultimate aim is to reduce road accidents and enhance the urban driving experience. The Jaguar Land Rover research team is developing this technology to improve visibility and to give the driver with the right information at the right time,” said Dr Wolfgang Epple, Director of Research and Technology for Jaguar Land Rover. “If we can keep the driver’s eyes on the road ahead and present information in a non-distracting way, we can help drivers make better decisions in the most demanding and congested driving environments.”

 

 

Further enhancing this notion is the second feature currently under development, dubbed the Follow-Me Ghost Car Navigation system. The tech takes heads-up display navigation to another level by projecting a video game-style “ghost car” on the windshield which acts as the vehicle to follow on your route, greatly reducing the need to take your eyes off the road to look at a navigation screen to anticipate the next maneuver along your route.

 

The Follow-Me Ghost Car Navigation system works similarly to the Virtual Windscreen Concept that Jaguar revealed earlier this year. That technology, shown in an F-Type coupe, would provide not only real-time telemetry data but also display suggested racing lines and brake zones as well:

 

 

While the 360 Degree Virtual Urban Windscreen and Follow-Me Ghost Car Navigation systems aren’t quite ready for primetime just yet, the technology also doesn’t exist in some “where we’d like to be in twenty years” pipe dream either – both systems are grounded enough in reality that it’s certainly possible we could see these systems in production cars by the close of the decade.

 

Check out the video below to see the new features in motion, and be sure to have a look at JLR’s press release for additional details.