Autonomous Vehicles

Self-driving (2020) versus autonomous vehicle (2025)?

How will various firms respond to these developments?

1)Gain deep access to advanced knowledge

  1. Google - build and drive; strategic alliance with Ford? Autonomous from the beginning
  2. Google has the technology lead in combining hardware and software, plus information services, plus servers, plus search
  3. Google: neural networks, AI, machine learning, machine vision
  4. Uber – create research center at Carnegie Mellon
  5. GM – invest $500 million in Lyft – valued at $4.5 billion (Uber at $62 billion)
  6. Alibaba also invested in Lyft

Ford, GM, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan-Renault, and Toyota have all opened R&D centers in Silicon Valley over the past several years.

2)Car as a Service (CaaS)

  1. Ride sharing
  2. Delivery services
  3. Google's strategy is to provide the technology infrastructure, maps and software to make CaaS happen sometime after 2020.

3) In vehicle infotainment

How will governments respond?

1)$400 million per year for 10 years for research

2)Regulatory changes – supportive or resistance?

3)Eliminate hurdles and reregulate based on mixed human-robot system

4)Variety of regulations across state and local governments

California rules:

mandate that autonomous vehicles be operated by a licensed driver who could take over if necessary.

driver would also be on the hook for traffic violations.

manufacturers of self-driving cars would have to subject their vehicles to a third-party safety test.

And they would apply for three-year permits that would allow them to lease but not sell self-driving cars to the public.

The D.M.V.’s draft is basically a starting point for two workshops — one in Sacramento, another in Los Angeles — where regulators and manufacturers will talk about rules for allowing ordinary people to operate self-driving cars.

Turns out, though, their accident rates are twice as high as for regular cars, according to a study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Driverless vehicles have never been at fault, the study found: They’re usually hit from behind in slow-speed crashes by inattentive or aggressive humans unaccustomed to machine motorists that always follow the rules and proceed with caution.

How will these car-robots work?

Systems of systems

Systems integration

Outsourcing versus vertical integration – which is best?

Already in Some Cars

Antilock brakes

Electronic stability control

Lane keeping

Lane departure warning

Pedestrian detection

Driver fatigue/distraction alert

Cruise control/adaptive cruise control

Forward collision avoidance

Automatic braking

Automated parking

Adaptive headlights

Traffic sign detection

Coming

Handoff from human to car and back

Multiple and cooperating cameras (redundancy?)and sensors equipped with Kinect-like capabilities:

Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) sensors to build a detailed view of the world around them.

Lidar works by rapidly firing laser light away from the car and measuring how much light is reflected back - a similar principle to radar, which uses radio waves instead.

Traffic jam assistance

Super cruise control

Night assistance thermal imaging

V2X and V2V communications cars and roads communicate via AI-based software

Overcome problems with snow – distorts road

Google's autonomous vehicle software lacks the ability to predict and react to "once in a million" events -- such as performing under diverse weather conditions, unique road work, specific traffic situations and other non-traditional driving situations.

  • The technology adds about $250 to the cost of a car, although this will go down in the future
  • We need a critical mass of V2X-equipped vehicles on the roads before the benefits begin to show
  • Even though the U.S. Government will likely mandate inclusion of V2X for all cars built after 2019, under 10 percent of vehicles on the road are less than a year old and the aftermarket for V2X devices hasn't started to be developed
  • The secure credential management system (SCMS) needed to ensure the authenticity, security, and privacy of V2X communications has yet to be implemented

Note the network effects!

Intersection assistance

Traffic light detection

Autos will need:

Satellite connections for GPS

Cameras that see in the dark and measure distances

Fully electronic systems for all operations

V2X and V2V connections

Street level digitized maps of everywhere

Multiple connected and cooperating CPUs and GPUs

Master O/S

Multiple apps fully integrated

AI based software systems - why is this so important?

Stages of implementation of Autos

1)1990-2005

Application of computer-based systems to cars – anti-lock brakes and adaptive cruise control

2)2005 – 2013

More sophisticated automatic support systems – electronic stability control, various warning devices based on cameras: lane keeping and warning; self parking; backup collision avoidance; collision ahead stopping; right turn warning; GPS; satellite based systems

3)2014-2020

Sophisticated driving systems for limited self-driving and V2V; government mandated devices; better driver monitors - eyes

4)2020 – 2025

Limited autonomous vehicles

5)2025-2030

Fully autonomous vehicles

6)2020-? Ubiquitous infrastructure support

V2X/V2V IoT

7)2040 – human drivers are banned from roads

Google vs. Apple vs Toyota vs Mercedes vs Tesla vsFord vs GM?

January 12, 2015

Self-driving cars drew 5-10 years closer to reality in the last week. That’s the impact of a half-dozen automakers announcing plans at CES 2015 for autonomous driving vehicles that will be on the road sometime between 2017 and 2020. To underscore how close we’ve come, Audi sent a car 560 miles from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas with lightly trained drivers — journalists, actually — sitting behind the wheel, hands-off.

Also at CES, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a swoopy prototype self-driver, the F 015 Luxury in Motion. The front seats swivel so driver and passenger can sit face to face with back seat passengers. BMW showed a self-parking i3 EV, not just parallel parking but able to hunt through a parking garage for open spaces. The same sensors avoid cars and pedestrians while under way. Ford CEO Mark Fields in a CES keynote said Ford will produce an autonomous driving car for the masses who can’t afford Audi/BMW/Mercedes level pricing.

Gesture Controls for Passengers

The Mercedes is built to enable a constant exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world. Inside the car, six display screens are integrated into the instrument panel and the rear and side panels, allowing passengers to control systems using gestures

Ford Opens Lab in Silicon Valley

By Molly Wood

January 22, 2015 6:23 pm January 22, 2015 6:23 pm

Photo

Mark Fields, Ford’s chief executive, speaking at the International CES earlier this month. Under Mr. Fields, Ford has moved aggressively to establish itself as a technological innovator.Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images

In the latest sign that the distinctions between the auto and tech industries are becoming more blurry, Ford on Thursday celebrated the opening of a new research center in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The company said the new center would help advance new car technologies like built-in Internet connections and eventually self-driving vehicles. It will be led by DragosMaciuca, a former senior engineer at Apple who has also led research and development at Lockheed Martin.

  • 04.03.15
  • 7:00 am

This Is Big: A Robo-Car Just Drove Across the Country

Click to Open Overlay Gallery STEPHEN LAM/Reuters/Corbis

An autonomous car just drove across the country.

Nine days after leaving San Francisco, a blue car packed with tech froma company you’ve probably never heard of rolled into New York City after crossing 15 states and 3,400 miles to make history. The car did 99 percent of the driving on its own, yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets.

This amazing feat, by the automotive supplier Delphi, underscores the great leaps this technology has taken in recent years, and just how close it is to becoming a part of our lives. Yes, many regulatory and legislative questions must be answered, and it remains to be seen whether consumers are ready to cede control of their cars, but the hardware is, without doubt, up to the task.

The iCar?

March 24th 2015 | Multiple countries | Passenger vehicles

Apple has a habit of disrupting established industries. But has it really set its sights on the automotive industry too?

When it comes to product development, Apple likes to play its cards close to its chest. The Cupertino, California-based company has initiated Project Titan and is hiring automotive engineers and car designers, but whether it is actually working on a motor vehicle remains a matter of conjecture. According to a joke making rounds in Silicon Valley: the Apple iCar, if it is ever created, will certainly have no Windows.

Since its inception in the early 1970s, Apple invented the personal computer - changing the world forever - and went on to disrupt the music business and then the cell phone business. It then turned its attention back to personal computers, dealing the industry a major blow with its iPad. It is currently trying to get young people to wear wristwatches, while changing yet again the way they communicate with each other.

World's First Autonomous Truck Goes Into Operation

ByPaul A. Eisenstein

5/5/15

The world's first autonomous 18-wheeler is getting down to business. At a ceremony at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Tuesday, Gov. Brian Sandoval handed over an official Nevada license plate for use by a new Freightliner Inspiration Truck on public roads.

Though a human "driver" will need to sit behind the wheel in case of an emergency, the new system is intended to usher in an era that could very well lead to fleets of trucks that have no humans on board at all, said Wolfgang Bernhard, the board member overseeing truck operations at Freightliner's parent, Daimler AG.

NYT

Google to Test Bubble-Shaped Self-Driving Cars in Silicon Valley

By CONOR DOUGHERTY and AARON M. KESSLERMAY 15, 2015

Photo

A prototype of Google's self-driving car.Credit Tony Avelar/Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — The world is one step closer to the day when people can, in good conscience, drive to work while sipping coffee, texting with a friend and working on a laptop computer.

On Friday, Google announced that sometime this summer several prototype versions of its self-driving cars are set to hit the streets of Mountain View, Calif., the search giant’s hometown. The move is still just another round of testing but it is a significant step toward a pilot program in which regular consumers could ride in self-driving cars.

A Dialogue of Car and Highway

By Quentin Hardy

June 10, 2015 6:30 pm June 10, 2015 6:30 pm

Traffic in Stockholm on a morning in April 2014. IBM said it helped reduce traffic in the Swedish capital by a fourth.Credit Jonathan Nackstrand for The New York Times

One peek at all the electronics under the hood is proof that today’s car is as much computer as engine. Examine the larger picture, and you’ll see how much the stuff around cars is becoming smarter, too.

Smart roads, toll plazas, traffic lights and signs are all increasingly connected to cars. Connected cars are talking to one another, and to the devices over and around them. Often the reasons for this will involve cost savings and faster-moving traffic. Travel will be safer, too, advocates say.

Special Section: Transportation

A look at how technology is changing how we get around

“Cars won’t be by themselves anymore, they’ll be connected to the road and each other,” said Eric-Mark Huitema, a manager in IBM’s “Smarter Cities” initiative. “Eventually there won’t be many accidents, which means you can reduce the weight of a car by 70 percent, all the metal we put in there to protect people. Cars might be made of glass.”

That is a decade or more away, but already IBM says it has helped reduce traffic by 25 percent in Stockholm, in part by examining traffic patterns and telling people the best times to drive. In Singapore, there is a pilot project to override traffic lights when the roads detect an accident. At IBM buildings in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, the company monitors bicycle use among employees in some locations, giving bonuses to people who forgo autos for bikes on a daily basis.

One way Audi plans to inspire confidence in consumers is by taking design cues from commercial airplanes, which people already trust, even when they know that a computerized autopilot is guiding them through the air.

A coming Audi A8 will be loaded with redundancies — two braking systems, two steering systems — so that if one fails, the computers can use the other to operate the vehicle. The concept is inspired by planes, which often fly with three versions of their most crucial components.

Another pair of redundant systems is, essentially, the car’s eyes. A front- and rear-facing camera system, along with a highly precise GPS, can tell Audi prototypes where they are on the track, which the computer has memorized. If the positions the systems give don’t match, the automation shuts down.

Fortune

3 ways AT&T wants to cash in on connected cars

  • by
  • Jeff John Roberts
  • @jeffjohnroberts

July 23, 2015, 8:05 PM EDT

The phone company is now a car company! Well not really, but AT&T offered some insights onto how it will try to make money from Internet-connected cars.

On its quarterly earnings today, AT&T boasted of 2.1 million new subscribers. That’s an impressive feat in a saturated phone market – until you realize that most of those subscriptions aren’t for phones at all, but instead for tablets and 1 million “connected cars.”

The arrival of connected cars is intriguing as both a technology breakthrough and as a business opportunity, and AT&T is poised to be a prime beneficiary. On an earnings call Thursday afternoon, the company set out three car-related revenue streams it hopes to tap:

1) Selling data and marketing information to car makers

NYT

Among the States, Self-Driving Cars Have Ignited a Gold Rush

AUG. 6, 2015

A traffic signal at an intersection in MCity, a 32-acre testing environment for driverless vehicles, in Ann Arbor, Mich.Credit Laura McDermott for The New York Times

By DINO GRANDONI

Whether it is fuel savings, safer commutes or freed-up time behind the wheel, drivers have many reasons to embrace self-driving cars.

But another group is just as eager to see these vehicles on the road: politicians.

Lawmakers from California, Texas and Virginia are wooing the autonomous car industry, along with the jobs and tax revenue that come with it.

They are financing research centers, building fake suburbs for testing the cars, and, perhaps most important, going light on regulation, all in an effort to attract a rapidly growing industry.

The prize: A piece of the estimated $20 billion automakers and other companies will spend globally on development over the next five years, according to an analysis by Gartner.

Toyota to Finance $50 Million ‘Intelligent’ Car Project

By JOHN MARKOFFSEPT. 4, 2015

Gill Pratt is leaving his position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to direct Toyota’s artificial intelligence effort.

The Toyota Motor Corporation announced on Friday an ambitious $50 million robotics and artificial intelligence research effort, in collaboration with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to develop “intelligent” rather than self-driving cars.

The distinction is a significant one, according to Gill Pratt, a prominent American roboticist, who has left his position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Pentagon to direct the new effort.

Toyota plans $1B R&D push on A.I. and robotics in U.S.

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Toyota's Highway Teammate, a modified Lexus GS the company is using to trial autonomous driving technology. Credit: Toyota Motor

A new R&D center will open in January, headed by a former DARPA scientist

By Martyn Williams

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IDG News Service| Nov 5, 2015 9:16 PM PT

Toyota plans a major push intoartificial intelligence and robotics technology research and will invest US$1 billion over the next five years to establish a Silicon Valley research and development center to pursue those goals.

The Toyota Research Institute willbe led byGill Pratt, who recently joined Toyota from DARPAwhere he ran the Robotics Challenge, an event that promoted work on robots that can work with humans.

Some important questions and problems?

Legal

Who or what will have liability for an autonomous vehicle?

Insurance

Who or what will be required to purchase insurance? What coverage?

Political

Should governments assist in creating the conditions for network effects?

Mandate standards?

Where do autonomous vehicles already exist?

AVs are already a reality in selected applications that feature controlled environments, such as mining and farming. In these cases, the restricted nature of operations and the possibility to operate on private roads facilitate adoption. Some of the benefits of autonomy in these fields include labor-cost savings and the reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions through optimized driving (shown to cut emissions by as much as 60 percent). Other adjacent equipment applications—for example, in the construction and warehousing sectors—should see the next AV applications for vehicles such as excavators, forklifts, and loaders.