General Motors' Futurama Exhibit in the 1939 World's Fair Included A

Intelligent and

Connected Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/134/11/32/6357972/me-2012-nov2.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 Automated cars that communicate: How much can that save us in lives, money, and frustration?

Ahmed K. Noor and Sven A. Beiker

eneral Motors’ Futurama exhibit in the 1939 World’s Fair included a vision of what transportation might look like 20 Gyears in the future. The forecast for 1959 included self-guided cars and automated highways. GM’s forecast was a bit hasty, and its full vision has yet to be realized. But developments since then, especially in the past four decades, have brought us closer. Major automotive companies have added automated functions to their vehicles, and various driver assistance systems—adaptive cruise control, video-based lane analysis, steering and braking assistance—are currently available on high-end models. Automated systems can assess some traffic situ-

Ahmed K. Noor is Eminent ations faster than humans can. As a result, auto- Scholar and William E. Lobeck mated driving is expected to significantly reduce Professor of Modeling, Simulation, and Visualization accidents and traffic fatalities, improve traffic flow Engineering at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. Sven A. and highway capacity, achieve better fuel efficiency, ominion university ominion d

Beiker is the executive director

and reduce emissions. d of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) Cars will be able to drive safely while close in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Stanford together, with far less need for wasteful accelera-

University in California. tion and braking. If people can be entirely relieved Wilson/ol Derek

32 mechanical engineering | November 2012

Autonomous Cars.indd 32 10/5/12 12:39 PM Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/134/11/32/6357972/me-2012-nov2.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021

Transportation may some day stress the “auto” in automobile: vehicles that can safely guide themselves through a cluttered and unpredictable world.

November 2012 | mechanical engineering 33

Autonomous Cars.indd 33 10/5/12 4:22 PM of driving and navigation tasks, they will prohibit or specifically regulate the opera- be able to talk on the phone or text tion of autonomous vehicles and that without causing accidents. rule-making is required before 2015. Human error is the most costly It isn’t Futurama, but automated influence on the road. The National driving is here. Autonomous sys- Highway Traffic Safety Administra- tems help with steering and with tion reported 32,788 traffic fatali- path planning, including accelera- ties in the U.S. for 2010 and esti- tion and braking. High-precision mated that 93 percent of them are navigation, using GPS, other sen- attributable to human error. sors, and databases determine the An advocacy group, the Association route to a destination. They all make for Unmanned Vehicles International, driving easier and support the driver, Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/134/11/32/6357972/me-2012-nov2.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 published an estimate in May that traffic who remains in control. Motors General

congestion alone costs the U.S. economy more The GM EN-V, a The level of automation can vary. The human than $85 billion a year. prototype autonomous driver may be required to monitor the system Still, the public needs to be convinced that the electric vehicle. and be prepared to take over complete control technology is useful, desirable, and safe. There are also cul- of the vehicle at any time. In highly automated and fully tural, social, legal, business, and other issues that need to automated modes, the driver becomes the operator of the be resolved before society accepts fully autonomous cars. vehicle, and does not need to monitor the system as long But there are already signs of change. Nevada has become as it is active. In case of a takeover request, the driver has a the first state to officially license autonomous vehicles. certain time to react before the system returns to the mini- California meanwhile has confirmed that the state does not mum risk condition (standstill) by itself.

Accomplishments in Autonomous Vehicle Technologies n the last four decades several San Diego, Calif., before a gathering of creative minds to the development of attempts have been made in the United transportation professionals and public autonomous car concepts. As of 2012, I States, Europe, and Japan to develop officials. Because of budget constraints, the Google fleet included five Toyota car automation systems. the U.S. Department of Transportation Priuses and one Audi TT, which continue A simple self-driving vehicle, built by canceled the program in 1998. to navigate the highways of California Japan’s Tsukuba Mechanical Engineer- In 2000 Japan’s Advanced Cruise-Assist and have logged over 200,000 miles (with ing Laboratory in 1977, could track white Highway System Research Associa- occasional human intervention). street markers for up to 50 miles and tion demonstrated the effectiveness of Researchers at MIT recently developed reach a speed of 20 miles per hour. A magnetic sensors in driver assistance an “intelligent co-pilot” system that vision-guided Mercedes-Benz automated systems on the road using a group of 38 enables the car to share control with the van, built in the 1980s by Ernst Dick- cars, buses, and trucks. driver. The system monitors the driver’s manns and his team in Munich, could Between 2000 and 2002 a consortium performance and makes behind-the- reach a maximum speed of 60 miles per of 12 car manufacturers, suppliers, and scenes adjustments to avoid collision hour on streets without traffic. research institutes were funded by the with obstacles and to keep the vehicle The first automated research vehicles European Commission to work on the within a safe region of the environment. that were able to move without human Carsense project. Stock cars were used If the driver is distracted, and is about intervention in heavy traffic for long as a platform and were augmented with to run into a barrier, the system takes distances were developed through the wide range of sensors to enable fully over, and steers the car back into a safe Pan-European Eureka Prometheus Proj- automated driving. Prototypes were suc- zone. The system is considerably lighter ect. The twin autonomous vehicles, VaMP cessfully tested at slow speeds in dense in sensors and computational require- and VITA-2, which were built in the 1990s, traffic environments, and around urban ments, and therefore is less expensive, could reach speeds exceeding 110 miles areas with traffic jams, tight curves, and than current fully autonomous vehicles, per hour on the German Autobahn. They crossings, in the presence of pedestrians. like Google’s driverless car. used computer vision to recognize very Google’s driverless car fleet and various In summer 2012 the U.S. Department of different kinds of objects and automati- autonomous vehicle competitions—such Transportation started an extensive pilot cally avoided them. as the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 test for vehicle safety communication The National Automated Highway and the Urban Challenge in 2007, with in Michigan. It equipped 3,000 vehicles. System Consortium successfully dem- successful entries from Stanford Uni- First results are expected next year. A onstrated in 1997 the use of a fleet of versity and Carnegie Mellon University, target date may be announced next year more than 20 fully automated vehicles and VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous for the deployment of this technology to on a seven-mile stretch of highway in Challenge in 2010—have helped attract the general public.

34 mechanical engineering | November 2012

Autonomous Cars.indd 34 10/5/12 12:39 PM The goal of automation is to create intelligent vehicles not likely to meet automotive industry requirements of that can manage di erent situations and to connect all traf- being maintenance-free and una ected by dust or weath- ﬁ c participants with each other in some way. Connected er. The challenges for the laser sensors are important, vehicles have the potential of improving situational aware- since in all automated research vehicles those sensors ness, safety, mobility, and the environment. Vehicles would provide the precise information about the contour and be able to inform drivers of roadway hazards and danger- distance of objects. To date, no alternative to laser sensing ous situations they cannot see. A vehicle driving over a has been identiﬁ ed. patch of black ice, for example, can warn other vehicles and Sensors can provide accurate information regarding an also alert safety crews to treat the hazard. object’s distance, contour, and potentially, its material. In an intelligent vehicle, a large suite of sensors moni- However, more context information is needed to deter- tors the state of the vehicle and its surrounding environ- mine the actual driving situation, its severity, and the nec- ment. A positioning system takes data from the sensors essary action by the car.

and provides information about the location of the car Current automated research vehicles cannot navigate in Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/134/11/32/6357972/me-2012-nov2.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 on the planet, on the construction zones, ac- road, and in the lane. cident areas, or other un- A motion planning expected situations as well subsystem guides the car as an experienced human in its second-to-second driver can. Current auto- movement so that it can mated driving systems are abide by tra c rules and not adequate to make deci- avoid collisions. Planning sions under uncertainty. tasks include automated For example, the images parking, and adaptive generated by laser, radar, cruise control, using A Volkswagen or camera of a plastic bag radar to control velocity autonomous blown across the street research vehicle Accomplishments in Autonomous Vehicle Technologies and distance from the is conspicuously and of a ball followed by preceding vehicle. driverless. a child might be similar. VOLKSWAGEN A control system trans- However, the action taken lates decisions into actions in a fraction of a second. by the vehicle should be very di erent in the two cases, but On the way towards fully automated driving, many chal- that is not possible with present-day automation systems. lenges need to be addressed. There are technology issues, Today’s tra c relies on the human capability to under- including reliability, and non-technical issues of cost, regu- stand context in very di erent situations. lation, and legislation. The relation between the cost and the reliability of the Roadmap for Automated Vehicles autonomous subsystems is a major challenge. Some of In the last few years, the automotive industry has intro- the technologies used in current research of automated duced systems that can alert a driver when the vehicle vehicles are reliable but very expensive. Attempts are becomes too close to lateral lane markers or when another ing made to use more economical substitutes, in a smart vehicle is in the blind spot when the driver is changing way, to achieve the same reliability. A ‘temporary auto lanes. While both systems currently provide an audible, pilot” system recently proposed by Volkswagen is a step visual, or haptic warning to the driver, an active inter- in that direction. vention with the steering or braking system of the ve- Experimental automated vehicles use lasers, radar, cam- hicle remains in the future—perhaps the near future. eras, and satellite-based positioning systems to determine From a technology standpoint, automated driving the vehicle’s location and immediate environment. Wire- vehicles might be possible in the short term, but as we less communication between vehicles and with conven- remarked, there are still many challenges on the way to- tional base stations has become a reality. wards their broad deployment. The evolution to automated production vehicles requires We have a general expectation of the introduction of au- turning the imaging systems into automotive-grade series tomated vehicles onto the public highways. Our predictions applications. Unlike human eyes, most sensors have dif- assume that the deployment of automated vehicles will be ﬁ culty adapting to changing light conditions, shadows, and evolutionary, without disruptive developments comparable di erent background color. Moreover, there is a lack of to those involving mobile communication technologies. technology that can put the perceived scenario into context There are other forecasts, however, which are more opti- and make decisions based on previous experience—skills mistic and predict that fully automated vehicles may be that basically make a human a good driver. deployed before the end of the present decade. The laser sensors in research vehicles use a mechanism We expect that, in the next ﬁ ve years, research vehicles for rotating the laser beam and for providing a 360-degree will continue to make intensive use of new autonomous view of the surrounding environment. The mechanism is driving technologies. Some vehicles will be able to drive

November 2012 | MECHANICAL ENGINEERING 35

Autonomous Cars.indd 35 10/5/12 12:40 PM in automated mode at close range and to intervene in hazardous situations. Further evolution will occur in the adaptive cruise control system. Cars will be able to control the speed within the limitations set by the driver and by other information Fully automated tra c could provided, including the road curvature and posted speed establish limits. The cars will also be able to avoid collisions with optimum use of highways. other vehicles and objects through automated braking.

Also, augmented reality technology will be used in assist- WILSON/ODU DEREK ing drivers, perhaps by combining the navigation system Legal Aspects of with displays projected on the windshield to indicate the correct path when approaching an intersection.

Automated Cars For the mid-term, the next fi ve to 20 years, three im- Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/134/11/32/6357972/me-2012-nov2.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 lthough the proper development and deployment portant technology components are expected to further of fully automated vehicles can eliminate many improve driver assistance systems and usher in highly A human errors and signifi cantly reduce the number automated driving: better sensor and recognition tech- of accidents, automation is not expected to eliminate all nologies, reliable vehicle communication, and accurate accidents or traffi c violations. map data to provide additional context regarding the An automated vehicle may travel above the posted driving situation. For example, if the vehicle travels on speed limit because glare renders the sign illegible. An a freeway, cross-tra c and pedestrians are extremely automated vehicle may park itself near a newly installed unlikely. If a vehicle operates in the city or an exit ramp, hydrant that was not included in the vehicle’s map data. the target speed for longitudinal control is signifi cantly Similar disconnection with the environment could lead lower than on the freeway. Such information can help in an autonomous vehicle into an accident that causes injury achieving safe and smooth vehicle control without re- and property damage. quiring the driver to be continuously in the control loop. In the presence of automated cars, identifi cation of an Although much of the information could be provided “error” scenario is needed, along with legal and con- through today’s in-vehicle navigation systems, the re- tractual liability standards. The standards are needed to quirement to have constantly updated, if not real-time, identify the responsibility of the vehicle’s manufacturer, information needs to be emphasized. Moreover, the net- service provider, operator, and other traffi c participants, work of the di erent control units of the future vehicle as well as the role of insurance. will be connected to base stations and cloud computing. Traffi c rules, established with no automated vehicles in The long-term vision is for the human to simply enter mind, may also need to be revised. In fact, the defi nition of a destination into the vehicle’s navigation system and “driver” would need to be reconsidered. let the automated vehicle perform all driving tasks dur- Defi nitions of “automated,” “autonomous,” and “driving the trip. The vehicle platform may evolve, with the erless” would also be needed to establish legislation steering wheel and the brake and accelerator pedals that regulates if, and under what conditions, automated disappearing, and the interior modifi ed to facilitate non- vehicles may be operated on public roads and interact driving activities. The human can then pursue activities with other traffi c participants. completely unrelated to the driving tasks, such as work- Some efforts for defi nition, standardization, and legisla- ing, socializing, or simply resting. tion of automated vehicles have started. The State of Eventually fully automated driving might lead to traf- Nevada established registration of autonomous vehicles fi c patterns very di erent from those we know today. As in May. Other states, including California, Florida, Texas, vehicles become self-driving, many new scenarios can be and New York, are working on similar initiatives. The Soci- envisioned such as automated vehicles becoming a ser- ety of Automotive Engineers has formed a committee for vice, called as needed. They can be dispatched, with no “On-Road Autonomous Vehicle Standards,” and the Ger- one inside, to customers. man Federal Highway Research Institute has proposed In the next decades, automated driving and inter-ve- defi nitions for different levels of vehicle automation. hicle communication technologies will have a dramatic If an autonomous vehicle becomes involved in an acci- e ect on the vehicles we use, on our mobility, the econo- dent that causes serious injury or a fatality, the public reaction will be hard to predict. The presumption of A 2009 concept by a British responsibility may rest on the manufacturer. Consequent- designer, ly, it is conceivable that corporations may be involved in Christopher Pollard, for the litigation that not only puts a company’s direct assets at Jaguar Mark XXI stake, but can also refl ect very harshly on its reputation. autonomous limousine covers This weighs a corporation’s motivation to manufacture the body with

innovative products with its need to avoid litigation. solar panels. JAGUAR

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Autonomous Cars.indd 36 10/5/12 12:40 PM Challenges for Fully Automated Driving he current traffic system relies Human factors research in other be, at times, equally safe or possibly largely on the human ability to domains where automation is widely safer. Law-enforcement officers must T assess a driving situation and used, as in aviation, can be helpful in be able to communicate to an automat- act accordingly. This leads to a certain addressing some of the challenges. ed vehicle that it is supposed to stop and level of comfort and trust with all traffic Ultimately, consumers will be the ones yield to cross traffic, even if the actual participants. to decide whether they trust or desire traffic signage says differently. Although an automated vehicle can the automated capability enough to give In-vehicle communications are expect- acquire more precise posi- ed to revolutionize road tion and velocity infor- safety, and alleviate the mation from its sensors challenges that arise from different forms of interac- than a driver in a human- Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/134/11/32/6357972/me-2012-nov2.pdf by guest on 30 September 2021 controlled vehicle, it does tions between automated not have the perceptive and human-controlled capabilities to comprehend vehicles. Consequently, the the context of a situation, U.S. National Highway Traf- or to make decisions under fic Safety Administration uncertainty. Therefore, the plans to make a decision in interaction of humans with 2013 concerning a possible the automated vehicle is requirement that automo- expected to result in a new A sleep at the tive manufacturers support wheel? Someday, these communications in set of challenges. BMW says, that The human passenger in may be practical. new cars. BMW an automated car might not The creation of a safe, agree with the automated driving style, up vehicle control. interoperable wireless communication for example, and that disagreement Several challenges pertaining to traf- channel connecting all ground vehicles, could manifest itself in a dislike for the fic coordination need to be anticipated traffic signals, and mobile devices journey, motion sickness, or a feeling when automated and human-controlled would be helpful in preventing colli- of discomfort or distrust. A passenger vehicles interact with one another, for sions, and in maintaining homogenous could simply ask a human driver to alter example, at a stop sign or in a traffic sit- traffic flow. Also, a communication the driving style, but such a request uation coordinated by law-enforcement channel to provide traffic coordination, would not be possible in an automated personnel. Almost any traffic situation or safety relevant information, from vehicle, unless some basic settings might be handled differently by an auto- a central traffic control unit or law- for the automated driving style can be mated or a human-controlled vehicle, enforcement personnel to automated adjusted by the user. although the automated scenario might vehicles would be desirable.

my, and the quality of our lives. To accelerate the development of fully automated The current trend of convergence of mobile electron- connected vehicles, there is a need for a cooperative ap- ics, cloud computing, communication, information, proach. A practical evolutionary roadmap can be devel- social networking, artificial intelligence, and other oped by an interdisciplinary panel of experts represent- leading-edge technologies will turn future cars into ing major car companies, government agencies, research more than just a means of transportation. Connected centers, and academia. The work of the panel can be intelligent vehicles will have the capability to access or facilitated by using an intelligent system that enables generate information, and share it with passengers, pub- crowdsourcing to get ideas from a key segment of stake- lic infrastructure, and machines. holders—the public in general. n They will become human-centered intelligent systems with expanding possibilities. They will serve as mobile Note: Readers interested in pursuing the subject covered offices, virtual assistants, entertainment centers, and in this article will find more information at http://www. mobile advertisement platforms. aee.odu.edu/futureintelvehicles/. New business models and new value chains will be cre- The website, created as a companion to this Mechanical ated. Neural and other novel interfaces will be added Engineering magazine feature, contains links to material which enable commands to be given with muscle im- on intelligent vehicles and connected mobility, and to some pulses, eye movements, sound waves, and brain waves, of the major research centers at academic institutions thereby creating an almost symbiotic relationship be- and automotive industry that are working on related tween humans and vehicles. technology.

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