MERCEDES-Benz will take a giant leap into the future with its new S-Class next year - moving it one step closer to producing a car that won't need a driver.

The luxury German car maker has just revealed some of the safety and comfort features which will be on its flagship model after a development programme which has included the building of a 25 million euro simulator at its research centre in Stuttgart.

Most of the ground-breaking features in the "Intelligent Drive" system are revolutionary, taking motoring to a new dimension. Others are futuristic enhancements of systems already on the existing S-Class.

One of the most radical is a system called Steering Assist which, when activated, can take over the steering of the car even at high speed.

Current legislation, however, means that man can't legally hand over to machine - yet.

So in the meantime those drivers lucky enough to be able to afford a new S-Class will have to be content to keep their hands on the wheel but let Steering Assist do most of the work for them.

They can, however, sample the road of the future, because you are able to take your hands off the steering wheel for 10 seconds before a flashing sign tells you to reinstate them, as I found out when I tried out the S-Class simulator.

If you don't comply the car sounds a warning buzzer and then switches off the system five seconds later.

But for those 15 seconds the simulator showed me just how capable the S-Class is of reading the road and traffic ahead and steering a perfect line.

I tried it two or three times at different speeds on fast and slow roads, even briefly sitting back with my arms folded, confident in the car's capability. S-Class buyers will be able to do the same thing next year when the car goes into UK showrooms.

Steering Assist is an add on to the Distronic Plus system on the current S-Class and Mercedes-Benz freely admits that it's a move towards driverless cars although it says it has no plans to introduce hands-free driving because of legal considerations.

"This is the first step towards autonomous driving," Dr Berhard Morys, the man in charge of the simulator told me.

"I'm sure it will come but it's difficult to predict how far away it is at present.

"This car can steer itself now in normal traffic conditions, as you have experienced. But while people can make mistakes on the road and it's accepted, if a machine makes a mistake people are not yet ready to accept that."

The new generation S-Class comes with 26 different sensors covering 360 degrees around the vehicle. The sensors "talk" to each other to build up a reliable image of the traffic situation around the car.

Some are cameras, others are short, medium and long range radar sensors while others are ultra sonic or infra-red devises.

The stereo camera located behind the windscreen near the rear view mirror, for example, recognises lane markings as well as vehicles driving ahead of it together with their three-dimensional positioning, and relays this information to the electric steering assistance system. It has a range of up to 500 metres ahead.

At slow speeds in congested traffic Steering Assist can use the vehicle ahead as a means of orientation, enabling semi autonomous following even when there are no clear lane markings visible.

But while the system is predominantly based on the stereo camera the area in front of the vehicle is also continually monitored by both short and long range radar sensors.

Intelligent Drive also uses its stereo camera and radar system to prevent head-on crashes when a motorist crosses the broken white line only to find another vehicle coming towards him.

The system recognises the critical situation and an up-dated version of the current Active Lane Keeping Assist applies the brakes on one side of the car to pull the vehicle back to safety.

The current S-Class model has the ability to automatically apply the brakes when it detects a potential collision with a vehicle ahead of it but the new model will be able to do the same thing when vehicles approach from the left or right, such as at road junctions. A pedestrian stepping off the pavement - potentially into the path of the car - will also trigger the same emergency braking.

And just to ensure that the driver is aware when approaching pedestrians or animals at night the car has radar and heat sensitive equipment which picks them out at 160 metres, showing a graphic of them on the dashboard. At 100 metres a flashing spotlight picks them out to warn both driver and pedestrian.

The spotlight is just one part of a totally new lighting system which sees the new S-Class becoming the first vehicle in the world without a single light bulb.

The total switch to LED technology brings with it a new generation of lighting which allows the car's high beam headlamps to be kept on permanently.

If the camera-based system detects oncoming traffic or a car ahead it encases it in a black box zone - and simply lights the road either side of it.

Should the new S-Class be involved in a collision passengers will have the added safety of seatbelts which inflate across the chest area to spread the pressure evenly.

It seems that with the new S-Class Mercedes is about to launch the car of the future - today.