Ex–NASA scientist Maarten Sierhuis believes that the key to getting people comfortable with the idea of autonomous driving is to make drivers feel at one with their cars, yet still in control. "You’re building this intelligent entity that has to cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate with humans," Sierhuis says of his work. That’s why he won’t yank away the driver’s steering wheel (like Google has), and why he’s adding features bit by bit—the Infiniti Q50, for example, already automatically keeps the car centered within street lanes. In January, he helped forge a partnership with NASA—an agency that knows a thing or two about operating robotic vehicles from millions of miles away—to help Nissan perfect its autonomous navigation capabilities in urban areas. Fully autonomous (but optional) driving is already being tested in Nissan’s best-selling electric car, the Leaf, and by 2020, the company hopes to introduce fully autonomous driving capabilities to its Infiniti and Renault brands.

Sierhuis is a computer scientist with a Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (modeling and simulation of human behavior) and agent programming languages. He has more than 25 years experience in software engineering, research and managing large teams of software engineers and researchers.

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