This article is part of our series on The Future of Transportationis exploring the innovations and challenges that affect the way we move in the world.
Imagine you’re traveling east on I-95 when you and your pickup encounter a red brake light miles ahead. Now, imagine not touching the brakes or the steering wheel and instead, sitting back and letting the car handle it.
For the next hour stop and go tag, the truck’s system does the driving: anticipating deceleration, acceleration, braking and steering itself. When traffic eases, the pickup climbs to the selected 70 mph speed and performs automatic lane changes. The system checks blind spots and flashes the turn signals.
But this truck is not designed to be a completely driverless one. The truck’s infrared driving surveillance camera will measure the eye and head position. You can glance at the passengers or consult the navigation screen – but if you look beyond a few seconds, the LED lights up blue on the steering wheel rim, a transparent command to get you back on the road. If you ignore the prompt, the rim will flash red and the system will shut down and return to hands-on control.
As Tesla faced a federal investigation and litigation of deadly crashes involving its Autopilot system, shaking public confidence in robotic cars, whether a reckless approach like the one described – also known as “Partial autonomy” or “driver assist” systems – could be the more realistic future of hands-free driving?
This type of system, more like a no-nonsense chaperone than one you’ll find on an all-robot vehicle, is a necessary component for the top score from the upcoming ranking. of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on partially autonomous technology; High ratings from highly regarded independent nonprofits. And though General Motors is leading the way with their Super Cruise system, they’re not alone; Ford, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are also making similar efforts.
Super Cruise combines detailed 3-D laser-scanned road maps with onboard cameras, radar and GPS. By the end of this year, the company plans to expand the system’s network to two-way highways for the first time and double its total operating range to 400,000 miles. Doing so will enable hands-free driving on some of North America’s biggest roads, such as the Pacific Coast Highway, Route 66, and the Trans-Canada Highway.
This is not to say that car companies are giving up on the dream of fully autonomous cars. In addition to Tesla, GM’s Cruise division, Alphabet’s Waymo and Argo AI continue to develop and test robotaxis, with human safety operators on board, in cities including Miami and Austin, Texas. Cruises have started charging fares for robotaxi riding in the Chevy Bolt EV modified in San Francisco and is Dubai map hoping to start a robotaxi program there next year.
But since completely driverless technology has faltered, so trust such technology. “Systems work well, until they fail,” says Bryant Walker Smith, an associate professor in the School of Law and Engineering at the University of South Carolina, who has advised the federal government on self-driving vehicles. “We don’t have the full sense of winning combinations to cover most of what every driver does.”
In addition, Cruise temporarily stop and recalled its fleet of 80 vehicles to fix software following a two-vehicle collision that injured two occupants in June. A GM public filing notes that law enforcement has shown that human-driven vehicles are mostly to blame, including speeding, and that the company’s robotics, Before the collision, nearly 125,000 left turns were safely made through gaps in oncoming traffic.
David Harkey, president of IIHS, says the industry’s reality check on technical challenges and public disillusionment is masking real progress. First, the building blocks of partially autonomous cars were in every showroom. Automatic emergency braking is standard on all new cars as of September, thanks to a voluntary agreement created in 2016 between the automakers, IIHS and the Highway Traffic Safety Administration. National Highway.
Such a radar or camera-linked braking system has reduced police-reported rear-end collisions by 50 per cent, Mr Harkey said, adding that automatic pedestrian braking has 30% less car-to-person collisions compared to vehicles without this feature. . And anti-lock brakes; camera, radar and ultrasonic sensors for blind spot management and lane departure monitoring; and adaptive cruise control has also become standard.
“We see it as beneficial technology and the same is true for some new technologies. We will continue to push for more features on more models to save more lives and prevent accidents,” said Mr. Harkey.
The trick, he said, is to build on that promise, with systems that increase safety in a measurable way but keep drivers in the loop.
“These are driver assistance systems, not driver replacement systems. Some consumers don’t know the difference,” he said.
For its part, IIHS is testing what it calls “partially self-driving” cars (another term for “assisted driver”). This fall, the nonprofit plans to release its first “Protection Rating” to help guide consumers and push the industry to integrate the most effective features.
A top “Good” rating would require a driver monitoring system to check both the driver’s gaze and hand position. A driver with coffee in one hand and an iPhone in the other will not be prepared to drive again. Other criteria include escalating visual, audible or tactile warnings to get the driver’s attention, and unsafe procedures to slow down or safely stop the vehicle if the system is misused or to assist an incapacitated driver. (Super Cruise and some similar systems incorporate many of those features.) The IIHS wants the manned system to initiate any automatic lane changes to keep them engaged in the process.
However, an early study pointed to potential barriers for driver assistance technology to achieve that “Good” rating. Recently lack of chips made it difficult for IIHS to collect and test relatively new cars and forced GM to halt Super Cruise installations. However, in a 2020 collaborative survey with MIT., IIHS found that Super Cruise and similar systems caused subjects to drive faster, look away more often, and use more hand-held devices, an indication that potential drivers were not paying attention. idea.
In Germany, Mercedes has begun pushing the boundaries with its new Drive Pilot, which legally allows drivers to perform non-essential tasks – check email, even watch movies – but monitor the driver. vehicle and warn when to turn back. IIHS divides these types of systems into degree of automation, from 0 (no automation) to 5 (full automation). Experts consider Level 3 (some automation, but manned at the ready) to be the hardest of the levels, an area of limbo compared to Level 5 cars that are actually robots. . Currently, Drive Pilot can only operate on certain highways at speeds up to 37 mph. Mercedes is seeking certification to offer the system in the United States next year.
Taking a different approach to marketing, GM and other companies have begun to downplay the safety benefits and cite reduced driver workloads, especially in tired roads and traffic. tired.
Super Cruise’s chief engineer, Mario Maiorana, said: “Owners feel more refreshed, feel more relaxed, but they remain attentive.
GM engineers say safe and responsible deployment guided every decision, including the delayed Super Cruise rollout in 2017, even as the company faced criticism. criticized for not keeping up with Tesla’s Autopilot.
The next test is GM’s Ultra Cruise, which the company plans to debut on the Cadillac Celestiq, a six-figure electric flagship sedan, late next year. The system is designed to ultimately deliver hands-free driving on 3.2 million miles of road – nearly every inch of paved roads in the United States and Canada.
Jason Ditman, chief engineer for Ultra Cruise, said systems must operate with complete transparency and consistency to build trust among owners and the public.
“If you think it’s hard to get someone to let go of the wheel on a highway,” says Mr. Ditman, imagine a snowy country lane or a busy city street.
GM says Ultra Cruise will stop and start at traffic lights and stop signs, automatically follow navigation routes, avoid objects near vehicles and pedestrians, and even park in the driveway. car. The machine learning system will identify dice scenarios and upload data to continuously improve performance, and GM can remotely stop using the system on any road where the company is not confident in its performance. . GM claims the system will eventually handle about 95% of driving, in addition to complex situations like multi-lane roundabouts.
Despite the famous crashes, Prof Smith believes that an over-focused focus on the flaws of driver assistance systems distorts the real crisis: Last year, nearly 43,000 Americans died in crashes. motor vehicle collisions, killing about 1.3 million people worldwide each year.
“At least 100 people will die on the roads of the United States today, and we will not hear about them,” he said. “It is very likely that no one was killed in relation to the driver assistance system.”
