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Kia gets Wise to autonomous driving

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Kia was recently awarded its first license for testing autonomous driving technologies on public roads. Now, the carmaker has unveiled the brand under which it plans to bring those technologies to market in the future. Kia Drive Wise covers both partially and fully autonomous technologies.

Kia has already said that it plans to bring partially-autonomous cars to market by 2020, and a fully-autonomous vehicle by 2030. Its Drive Wise technologies are inherent to that vision. The firm says they are primarily designed to make driving safer and easier, as well as to reduce or eliminate some of the more humdrum aspects of driving.

The more advanced technologies under development are said to be aimed at providing drivers with greater levels of assistance, anticipating and reacting to changing road conditions and potential hazards to improve safety for all road users. Some of the technologies are being showcased at CES this week.

Among those on display are Kia's Highway Autonomous Driving and Urban Autonomous Driving technologies. These variously use a combination of radar and camera systems, GPS and sensors to allow the car to negotiate lane-changing and overtaking on highways, or to navigate busy city environments.

Preceding Vehicle Following is a lane-keeping system that allows the car to follow the route of a vehicle in front at a safe distance if road markings are not clear, while Traffic Jam Assist maintains a safe distance from the vehicle in front when in congested traffic.

Also on display is Kia's Emergency Stop System, which works with the Driver Status Monitoring system to bring the vehicle to a stop safely in the event that the driver's face shows signs of excessive lack of driving attention, such as distraction or fatigue. The Autonomous Valet Parking system, meanwhile, allows the vehicle to park itself remotely once the driver has exited the vehicle and issued the instruction via a smartwatch.

Away from the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Kia's I-Cockpit is also being exhibited. It employs "blind control" that allows drivers to change settings without taking their eyes off the road. The cockpit recognizes the driver's preferred settings, such as for temperature or display configuration, by way of their fingerprint or smartwatch and the settings can then be changed using gesture control.

Kia plans to show more of its Drive Wise technologies and concepts at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show later this year.

The video below provides an overview of Drive Wise.

Source: Kia Motors