The German manufacturer has just announced that its system Mercedes Drive Pilotautonomous driving system level 3, received certification by the authorities of the state of California, in the USA. This now allows Mercedes to sell the Drive Pilot system on their production cars, which can be legally used on public highways in the United States.

“Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot is the world’s only SAE Level 3 system with international approval. It is built on a very solid foundation and sets new industry standards. Drive Pilot uses a highly sophisticated redundancy-based vehicle architecture with multiple sensors that provides comfortable and safe conditional automated driving. Certification by the California and Nevada authorities reaffirms that backup is a safe and therefore the right approach.”said Markus Schaefer, Chief Technical Officer and Head of Development and Supply at the Mercedes-Benz Group.

Mercedes Drive Pilot: the third-level autonomous driving system

Drive Pilot will soon be available as an option in the US market Mercedes S-Class and EQSfirst deliveries to customers are expected at the end of 2023. In addition to California,state of nevada in January 2023 already confirmed the compliance of the Drive Pilot system with its regulations, and soon Mercedes should extend the availability of this system to other markets.

The Mercedes Drive Pilot system allows the driver to forget about traffic and focus on certain secondary activities: when active, certain on-board applications can now be used on the car’s integrated central screen, although they are normally blocked while driving.

On certain highway sections and in heavy traffic, Drive Pilot can take over up to a speed of 65 km/h. When the driver activates the system with a simple push of the steering wheel controls, the system takes control of the steering, effortlessly steering the car into the lane, taking into account speed and distance to other vehicles.

Mercedes Drive Pilot: safe automated driving

Many parameters are taken into account, such as the route profile, events taking place on the route or even road signs, as well as unexpected traffic situations, with lane avoidance maneuvers or autonomous braking.

In cases where it is necessary to resume control of the driver if the latter does not resume control, for example in case of illness, the system is able to brake the vehicle to a complete stop safely and with hazard lights. on. The emergency call system is activated and the doors are unlocked to allow emergency services to respond.

Mercedes wants to improve its system Level 3 conditional automated drivingin order to be able to drive a car up to 130 km/h. For this, the manufacturer cooperates with such technology companies as Nvidia and Luminar. The Drive Pilot system uses sensors such as LiDAR, microphones, a road moisture sensor, and backup electronic systems to compensate for a possible failure.

Read also:
• Electric Mercedes CLA: everything we already know
• And if you bought a Mercedes-Benz dragster, the limousine version?
• VIDEO – He reworks the Mercedes Vision AVTR concept… out of wood!