#SelfDriving - Cars of the Future

UK plans ‘advanced’ driverless car road trials… meaning no safety driver

Driverless cars are a hot topic in the UK today (6 February 2019) thanks to a Government announcement on “advanced trials for self-driving vehicles”.

Stories ran in most of the biggest-selling newspapers focusing on the removal of the requirement for a safety driver. Actually, all the Department for Transport (DfT) committed itself to was to develop a process to help support advanced trials of automated vehicles.

Automotive Minister, Richard Harrington, said: “We need to ensure we take the public with us as we move towards having self-driving cars on our roads by 2021. The update to the code of practice will provide clearer guidance to those looking to carry out trials on public roads.”

The door to the removal of safety drivers is opened in point 1.4 of the introduction, on page 5 of the newly updated Code of Practice: Automated vehicle trialling (pictured).

It states that: “The Government acknowledges the desire to conduct advanced trials on public roads. Such trials may not readily fit within current UK legislation, so the Department for Transport’s motoring agencies will introduce and operate a process to support those looking to safely conduct advanced trials.”

The DfT emphasised that the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) must be informed in advance and trials would not be supported unless they pass rigorous safety assessments.

So, what have we learnt? That “advanced trials” in this context is broadly a euphemism for road tests without a safety driver, and that the timetable for implementation is ambitious: “for self-driving cars on our roads by 2021”.

With the lack of clarity around The driverless dilemma: who to save in no-win crash situations and a plethora of other unresolved issues, there is much to debate.

The fact is today’s announcement brings us closer to having driverless cars on UK roads.

The driverless dilemma: who to save in no-win crash situations

Addressing the vital question of what driverless cars should do in no-win crash situations, an AA survey of 21,000 UK drivers found that 59% would rather put themselves in harm’s way than risk more lives.

That seems highly magnanimous, but other results were far from clear-cut. 40% of respondents “preferred not to say” when faced with unpalatable options like running over children or the elderly.

AA president, Edmund King, said: “Of those who could make a choice, a clear majority decided to put themselves in danger, perhaps indicating they accept the risks and potential fallibilities of the technology.

“The driverless dilemma is a common question for programmers of autonomous vehicles, but the number of people who avoided giving a definitive answer shows this is a difficult ‘live or let die’ dilemma.”

The AA survey broadly backs up the findings outlined in Reasons to fear driverless cars – namely that most people agree:

1) Humans should be saved over animals.
2) The lives of many should outweigh the few.
3) The young should have priority over the old.

But it isn’t that simple. The waters get murky when people are asked if they would rather purchase a car programmed to protect them.

Azim Shariff, of the University of Oregon, asks: “Would you really want to be among the minority shouldering the duties of safety, when everyone else is free-riding, so to speak, on your equitability?”

Will all manufacturers apply the same default settings? Should owners be able to change them?

It is a huge concern that driverless cars could be on sale by 2021 when we’re not even close to answering such fundamental questions.

Drink driverless

Being able to have a beverage and leave the car in charge of the journey home is often cited (mainly by people in the pub) as one of the key benefits of driverless tech.

However, according to a report in the Standard, Huawei – the Chinese company best known for its phones – is designing cabin software which can spot if the owner is drunk and call the police.

The reason? Being drunk in charge of a vehicle, even if not driving, is an offence. There’s also a concern about override functions.

The system will compare the driver’s expressions, gestures and speech with archive footage, as well as checking for suspicious items such as open bottles.

Opinion will presumably be divided as to whether this is a clever safety innovation or an unnecessary invasion of privacy.

In another alcohol-related development, Makr Shakr – the company famous for using robotic arms to make cocktails – has combined this concept with an autonomous driving pod.

Digital Trends describes the result as a self-driving robot bartender, basically a mobile bar which you could summon via a smartphone app. Mojitos all round!

Driverless cars, bikes, trucks, bots and planes

Here at Cars of the Future we focus mainly on, er, cars… but when predicting how mobility might look by mid-century there are other driverless vehicles to consider.

Driverless bikes

Sky News reported last year on what it billed as the first self-driving motorbike, developed by British engineer Torquil Ross-Martin of AutoRd.

“A computer can do a better job than a human can because it is always concentrating,” he said. “When commuting you’re not necessarily completely focussed on what you are doing. You’re thinking about what you are going to do when you get to the office or whether you’re running late. That’s where the bike will improve the safety for commuters.”

Then, at CES 2019, Tech 360 posted this incredible video of BMW’s self-driving R1200GS:

Motor Cycle News (MCN) quoted BMW’s safety expert, Stefan Hans, as saying: “We can shift gears, we can steer the bike, but the fully automatic motorcycle is not our goal.

“Safety is one of the main things that stops people riding motorcycles. If we look at the last 20 years, deaths in cars have gone down by 73%, while deaths on bikes only gone down by 38%. Cars now can intervene before something dangerous happens and we need to learn more about motorcycles to help riders avoid getting in a critical situation.”

So, self-driving bikes are getting there, but many still tip the commercial vehicle (CV) sector to lead the way in driverless motoring.

Driverless trucks

For example, Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) recently introduced the new Freightliner Cascadia with level 2 automation.

“Automating acceleration, deceleration, and steering reduces the chance for human error, mitigates collisions, and can potentially save lives,” said a Daimler statement.

Driverless delivery bots

Perhaps surprisingly, given the attention lavished on driverless cars and platooning trucks, they could all get beaten to the punch by self-driving delivery robots.

These are already pootling about in the real-world. For instance, in collaboration with Robby Technologies, PepsiCo’s Hello Goodness ‘snackbots’ serve hungry college students in Stockton, California.

Amazon is also getting in on the act, using a compact self-driving vehicle called the Scout to make deliveries in Washington’s Snohomish County. The retail giant created this video to show its new walking-pace ‘delivery solution’ in action:

Driverless planes

With the ground getting crowded it might be quicker to take to the sky, so Boeing is working on an on-demand autonomous flying taxi.

Its test plane recently completed a controlled takeoff, hover and landing in Manassas, Virginia.

“In one year, we have progressed from a conceptual design to a flying prototype,” said Boeing’s chief technology officer, Greg Hyslop.

Must-see video: driverless from San Francisco to New York

Self-driving tech company, Pronto.ai, has posted a timelapse video of what is believed to be the longest journey yet for a driverless car, set to poetry by Charles Bukowski.

The vehicle in question, a Toyota Prius kitted out with digital maps and cameras, travelled 3,099 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to George Washington Bridge in New York in October 2018.

According to The News Wheel, Pronto’s Anthony Levandowski – formerly an engineer for Waymo – was in the driver’s seat for the whole trip, but didn’t use the pedals or steering wheel except to stop for fuel and rest.

Can you love driving and driverless cars?

In an interview with Autocar last year, Jaguar Land Rover’s head of product strategy Hanno Kirner asserted that, in the age of driverless motoring, many keen drivers will still want to get behind the wheel.

“Whether it is SVO (JLR’s performance arm) recreating classics to modern standards or creating track-day specials, I think it will grow as autonomous driving becomes a regular part of lives,” he said.

The suggestion seems to be that driving will live on largely as a leisure pursuit, similarly to the way people enjoy horse riding.

The more exhilarating end of this pastime will be motorsport, but driverless vehicles are already edging into even this hallowed territory.

The radio controlled car racing scene has had a loyal following for years and esports – video game competitions – are huge these days. It isn’t the same the purists will scream. Maybe not, but it is getting closer.

Just a few days ago, 23-year-old Enzo Bonito set the internet alight by beating Formula E champion (and ex-Formula 1 driver) Lucas di Grassi on a winding track in Mexico.

Race of Champions Mexico tweet January 2019

What made this performance exceptional is that Bonito is a professional gamer. He trained on racing simulators but successfully transferred those skills to tarmac to beat a big-name star.

Coincidentally, di Grassi is also CEO of the Roborace autonomous racing series, which is due to run alongside some Formula E races this season.

Is this an early example of passionate drivers and driverless cars living in harmony?

From high tech to highly debatable: self-driving at CES 2019

Here’s our round-up of some of the more interesting and lesser reported self-driving stories from this month’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas:

First, there was the hoo-ha over a Promobot being run over by a Tesla Model S. While the Washington Post described the incident as “a bit of embarrassment for Tesla”, Electrek suggested it was a PR stunt – they published a video of it here so you can make up your own minds.

Another one at the quirky end of the spectrum was the photographer claiming damage to his Sony camera after taking a shot of a lidar system. The BBC carried the story under the headline “Driverless car laser ruined camera”.

In more positive news, Aptiv offered enjoyable trips along the strip in its autonomous BMWs. The Inquirer’s journalist described the experience as “delightfully boring”.

Two of the most futuristic vehicles on show were Bosch’s IoT Shuttle and Rinspeed’s MicroSNAP (pictured above). The latter features a “skateboard” chassis and “pod” bodies that can be swapped at an automated robot station.

In terms of notable new partnerships, Ordnance Survey announced that its datasets will be combined with Mobileye’s car-mounted camera-based mapping to identify the locations of things like lampposts and manhole covers.

Elsewhere, German supplier ZF announced close collaboration with chip supplier NVIDIA, while GPS provider TomTom announced a link-up with Japanese components manufacturer, Denso.

Perhaps the most important news concerned the announcement of PAVE – Partners for Automated Vehicle Education – a group of interested parties including vehicle manufacturers (Daimler, GM, Toyota and VW), tech companies (Waymo, Intel and NVIDIA) and other big hitters like SAE International, the National Federation of the Blind and the National Council on Aging.

Their mission is to “inform the public about automated vehicles and their potential so everyone can fully participate in shaping the future of transportation.”

That all sounds great but it surely raises the possibility of confusion with the UK’s PAVE – People in Autonomous Vehicles in Urban Environments – a consortium including Race, Siemens, Amey, Oxbotica and Westbourne which is in receipt of government funding via the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV).

New driverless car UK road trials

Since 2014, the UK government has invested over £120 million supporting over 70 connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) projects, with a further £68 million coming from industry contributions.

The most recent road trials to be announced include self-driving vehicles running on single-track roads in the Highlands and islands of Scotland.

Other new initiatives include an autonomous bus service from Fife to Edinburgh (across the Forth Bridge) and a self-driving taxi trial in London.

The ServCity pilot, led by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), has won £11.15m from Innovate UK towards its £19.8m project to develop a bookable autonomous taxi service in the capital.

The consortium also includes the University of Nottingham and Professor Gary Burnett, Chair of Transport Human Factors, said: “ServCity is an ideal opportunity for us to conduct world-leading research to understand the complex factors that will contribute to the public’s acceptance of connected and automated vehicles.”

Elsewhere, the government has recently backed four other projects which form part of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and Meridian’s £100m infrastructure programme:

1) The Connected Vehicle Data Exchange (ConVEx), led by Bosch, to help position the UK as a leader in CAV research and development.

2) Highway Intersections, which will see 6km of track added to Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground in Leicestershire to mimic a variety of road junctions.

3) Rural and Highway, a project adding 265km of roads to UK public, controlled and virtual testing facilities via the Midlands Future Mobility consortium.

4) Self-parking Cars, a consortium including Japanese-owned HORIBA MIRA and Coventry University to create realistic parking scenarios on Warwickshire’s MIRA technology park.

On a visit to driverless vehicle software company Oxbotica, Business and Energy Secretary, Greg Clark, said: “The UK is building on its automotive heritage and strengths to develop the new vehicles and technologies and from 2021 the public will get to experience the future for themselves.”

For further details on CCAV projects, see the 80-page report UK Connected & Autonomous Vehicle Research & Development Projects 2018.

Park and charge: Hyundai video on EV automated parking

Hyundai has created an eye-catching video to show off its futuristic electric vehicle (EV) wireless charging system.

The film shows a connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) driving itself to a charging bay, being powered up via magnetic induction, and then parking itself in an ordinary bay nearby.

The owner then summons the car using an automated valet parking app on her smartphone.

Tim Armitage, Arup’s UK Autodrive project director, has asserted that such systems will enable cities to radically redefine their use of space, with far less land potentially needed for parking spaces .

“Valet parking systems will enable autonomous vehicles to drop passengers at convenient points, after which the vehicle will leave by itself to undertake a further journey, or park out-of-town,” he said.

Totally driverless cars on sale by 2021

Facing stiff new competition from Tesla, tech giants like Apple and a plethora of well-funded start-ups, leading vehicle manufacturers are pouring money into driverless cars.

In America, The Star reports that General Motors’ Cruise is battling with Google subsidiary Waymo to be the first to bring robot ride sharing to market.

GM has even appointed its company president, Dan Ammann, to be CEO of its self-driving unit, while Cruise cofounder, Kyle Vogt, stays to lead technology development.

According to GM Chairman and CEO, Mary Barra, this demonstrates a “commitment to transforming mobility through the safe deployment of self-driving technology and moves us closer to our vision for a future with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”

As to GM’s traditional rival, The Verge reports on a rumour that Ford will team up with VW for a joint self-driving car venture.

It adds that Ford is currently developing a purpose-built autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals.

Back here in Europe, Motor Authority reports that Audi is leading the charge to self-driving at VW Group.

Its new Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID) subsidiary has a remit covering all aspects of autonomous technology, from software and hardware to maps and calibration.

Led by CEO Karlheinz Wurm, who spent 12 years at Skype, AID has a goal to bring totally driverless vehicles to market by 2021.

By then, BMW might be on a sticky wicket with its famous “Ultimate Driving Machine” tagline.

Forbes reports on that here and suggests that the Vision iNEXT concept car is beginning to redefine the experience as “driving and/or riding”.

With backing from Chinese carmaker Geely, Fleet Europe reports that Volvo plans to introduce an autonomous car in the early 2020s.

It quotes a Volvo official as saying: “One of our aims is to be the supplier of choice for ride-hailing companies. We have deals with Uber and Baidu today. Others may come in future.”

The Swedish manufacturer is also leading calls for a universal safety standard for autonomous car communications.

One of the most eye-catching representations of how the near-future might look is this Dezeen video about Renault’s Ez-Pro concept.

It imagines how goods and services will be delivered in cities via driverless electric robo-pods which can travel either in convoy or independently.

Renault suggests the pods could also function as pop-up shops or food counters.

In Asia, Electric Vehicles Research reports that Honda is seeking partners for its prototype off-road Autonomous Work Vehicle.

With GPS and sensor-based autonomy, it is designed to function in almost any environment, from forests to urban pedestrian zones.

Meanwhile, Pulse reports that South Korea’s Hyundai aims to test unmanned cab services by 2021.

As well as investing in self-driving, vice chair Chung Eui-sun says the group will electrify 44 models by 2025 and commercialise fuel cell vehicles by 2030.

Finally, Autotrade reports on Kia’s Real-time Emotion Adaptive Driving (READ) system, developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

It envisages a future where autonomous driving is the norm and priority is given to improving the human experience.