DETROIT – This year’s Consumer Electronics Show and new vehicle launches at the North American International Auto Show were heavily focused on vehicle technology as much as vehicle styling and performance. While the tech buzz at NAIAS was skewed toward vehicle telematics, infotainment options, and alternative fuel strategies, the CES was abuzz with talk of autonomous driving vehicles and vehicle connectivity, with much blue-sky predicting of self-driving vehicles plying the streets of North America within a few years.
The automobile industry has slowly been edging toward the self-driving vehicle for a number of years; self vehicle stability control was a regular feature as early as 2002 on some European vehicles, and self-parking vehicle technology was announced as early as 2009 for availability on 2010 Lexus and Lincoln vehicles, and later adopted by Ford, Toyota and BMW. Several other OEMs have since joined the ranks of self-parking vehicle manufacturers. In 2013, self-parking assistance is not uncommon, but it also is not wholly automated; there is some human interaction required to complete the parking process. In 2013, both Audi and BMW debuted prototypes that would use a combination of sensor technology and corresponding “smart” building features to enable guided, self-parking in garages in Germany.
In the last several years, manufacturers have been releasing a number of highly useful, safety oriented features that, when integrated, will approximate the performance of an autonomous-driving vehicle. State and Federal regulations aside, (a major stumbling block�) we have reached the point where an autonomous vehicle is feasible, but there are obstacles that are preventing widespread availability, much less adoption.
Some generally-available features include that have reached the new vehicle market include:
? Lane Departure Warning – Technology that alerts the driver if the vehicle is leaving its lane. Some systems like Audi’s offer a visual, audible, and/or vibration warnings to gain driver attention. Others such as Mercedes Benz warn the driver and, if no action is taken, automatically take steps to ensure the vehicle stays in its lane. This is especially important is a driver is fatigued or engaged in other attention-diverting activities.
? Blind Spot Information Systems – Sometimes referred to as BLIS, this vehicle-based system of sensor can detect vehicles located to the driver?s side and rear. Alerts come in the form of visual, audible, vibrating or tactile signals, and are commonly integrated with a 360-degree camera view for use on backing. BLIS systems often incorporate ” Cross Traffic Alert capability,” which alerts drivers backing out of a parking space when traffic is approaching from the sides.
? Collision Avoidance Systems- Collision avoidance systems are designed to reduce the severity of an accident, though they cannot take proactive defensive action at this time. Also known as pre-crash system, or forward collision warning systems, they uses radar and sometimes laser and camera sensors to detect an imminent crash. Once the detection is done, these systems either provide a warning to the driver when there is an imminent collision or take action autonomously without any driver input (by braking or steering or both). The vehicle introduced by Audi at the 2014 CES contained all of these features.
Advanced safety features that provide real-time assistance to improve driving behaviors are the precursors to true autonomous driving. Activated in milliseconds, these sensor-driven systems depend on newly-emerged technology such as stereoscopic machine vision, laser and radar sensing technology, and many other integrated systems such as accelerometers and gyroscopic sensors. However, today’ s 2014 street-able vehicles have not yet found these systems integrated in a way that would enable them to contribute to an autonomously-driving transportation solution.
Getting back to the legislative considerations, a major obstacle is the state-level licensing of autonomously-driving vehicles for use on public highways. Nevada was the first state to approve driverless vehicle technology for use on public roads, followed by California, Florida, and most recently, Michigan. These early approvals will enable research and testing under real-world conditions, helping to gather the necessary intelligence to pilot additional features and technology that leads to predictable, reliable operation over millions of miles on thousands of vehicles.
The closest examples of fully-integrated autonomous-driving vehicle come from Google and Audi. Audi demonstrated its new autonomous driving pilot vehicle at the 2014 CE, a specially-equipped Audi A7. Although not a fully autonomous vehicle like the Google-modified fleet, Audi’s entry largely integrated many of the features we have come to be familiar with on highly-equipped 2014 Audi, Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, and Cadillac vehicles.
At a panel discussion, several opinions about the future of autonomously-driving vehicles emerged. Some takeaways:
Google’s Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson focused on the human element:
? Smarter vehicles could help make transportation safer and more efficient: Cars could drive more closely to each other, making better use of the 80 percent to 90 percent of empty space on roads, and also form speedy convoys on freeways.
? They would react faster than humans to avoid accidents, potentially saving thousands of lives.
? Vehicles would become a shared resource, a service that people would use when needed. A vehicle user could just tap on a smartphone, and an autonomous car would show up, ready to drive anywhere. (Drivers) could just sit and relax or do work.
? Making vehicles smarter will require enormous amounts of computing power and data, necessitating the capabilities of an innovative software company like Google to back the project.
Elmar Frickenstein, BMW’s Chief of EVP Electrics and Electronics and Kia Motors Henry Beizh, chief technology strategist examined the technology lifecycle differences between automotive and consumer technology:
? Faced with the “critical issue” of reconciling the average car’s lifespan of seven years with the barely 18-month lifecycle of a consumer electronics device, Frickenstein said, “I don’t see any solution.” He issued an appeal to the electronics industry: “We need your help.”
? In regard to the vast difference in innovation and business cycles, and the disconnect between the fast-moving CE world, in which people want a new gadget every Christmas, and the slower automotive cycle, in which car-buyers expect their vehicles to last. “It’s like a bad marriage,” Beizh said.
Timothy Yerdon, global director of innovation and design at Visteon, cast some doubt on the idea of truly autonomously-operating vehicle.
? The entirely self-driving car might never come to pass, because it will never be as good as a human driver at coping with the unexpected on the road, (although some believe, as do Google’s Thrun and Harmson) that advanced sensing and control features can truly push the safety envelope by performing at levels unattainable by human drivers.
? Yeardon posed a difficult scenario, wondering if the car would realize that it’s in trouble, “How do you alert the driver to take control from an autonomous driving mode?”
As the conference wrapped, the general consensus was that the ultimate goal is the create a vehicle that can act as an intelligent electronic chaffeur. The “driver” will be able to take his or her hands of the wheel and participate in some other activity, or nothing at all. That, all agreed, is still a long way off. For the foreseeable future, the outcome will be realized incrementally, with a car able to perform simpler, more straightforward functions, like finding its own space in a parking garage, perhaps by 2020, sensing an obstruction and slowing the vehicle.
“This is no Big Bang,” Frickenstein said.
Kia’s Beizh tossed in the very sensitive topic of cost. “How much does it cost to build an automobile that can drive itself?” he asked. “And can it be mass-produced?”
Jeremy Eckhous has extensive digital marketing planning and strategy experience, and digital technology production experience spanning over 20 years in the marketing, communications and IT consulting arena. He is currently the Chief Communications Officer for Mobile Comply, a leading training and consulting company focusing exclusively on the mobile ecosystem.
Jeremy recently left Compuware Corp., where he was a marketing technologist and project manager in the Mobile Solutions Group. In the past year, Eckhous has been conducting research and developing strategies to support connected vehicle solutions, mHealth, and M2M solutions. Mr. Eckhous blogs regularly on enterprise mobile management, emerging technologies in the mHealth space, and future technologies like Raspberry PI and Ambient Intelligence. Contact him at [email protected]
