Automakers intending to develop driverless cars need to work as much on software design as mechanical engineering, according to the researcher leading Nissan Motor Co.'s automated-vehicle program.
Making cars that are "deliberative" in assessing road conditions, rather than just reactive, requires artificial intelligence, said Maarten Sierhuis, director of Nissan's Silicon Valley research center in Sunnyvale, California.
Nissan, which aims to sell vehicles that can drive themselves by 2020 or sooner, is developing software to read and filter sensor data much as a human brain does, he said.