2 Autonomous Car Technology

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1 2 Autonomous Car Technology GM s Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World s Fair predicted autonomous cars would be a staple of driving in the 1960 s. While the development has been decidedly slower than initially predicted, tangible advancements over the past thirty years make Google s, Audi s, BMW s, GM s, Mercedes, and Nissan s prediction that a fully autonomous car will be available by 2020 much more believable. Autonomous technology began finding its way into our cars in 1985 with anti-lock brakes. The next major advancement, electronic stability control, occurred a decade later. The past ten years have witnessed a multitude of technological advancements including lane-keeping and warning systems, adaptive cruise control, back-up alerts, and parking assistance. The 2013 Mercedes S-Class, Volvo XC60 and S60, and Lexus LS include technology that autonomously detects objects and brings the vehicle to a stop when traveling under 25mph Participants 2 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) 3 While the European Commission s Eureka Prometheus Project in 1987 and Italy s Argo Project in 1996 were two of the first research projects into autonomous car technology, the United States DARPA Grand Challenge of 2004 is the one that really kick started the movement. The challenge required cars to autonomously navigate a 132 mile course in the Mojave Desert, through three narrow tunnels and over one-hundred sharp left and right hand turns. The teams received the course map a mere two hours before the start of the race. In 2004, no car completed the course, let alone in the required time period. The winner traveled only 7.36 miles. Just a year later, autonomous cars had their first success as five participants completed the course, four doing so in the allotted time period. DARPA extended its challenge in 2007 by moving the tests onto roadways and forcing participants to overcome real traffic issues. Similar to the 2005 challenge, four teams completed the course in the required time, thereby proving that technology could be created to obey all traffic laws, detect and avoid other autonomous cars on the course and merge into traffic. Google After winning the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, Sebastian Thrun teamed up with Google co-founder Sergey Brin to lead its autonomous car efforts. Autonomous car technology overcame a major hurdle in 2009 when Google put its self-driving car on public roads. Since then, Google s autonomous cars have driven over 500K accident free miles. 4 It is reported that its fleet of thirty-two self-driving cars are logging around 1,000 miles a day and have surpassed 96,000 miles of driving without safety critical intervention A more comprehensive listing can be found in Appendix A

2 Bryant Walker Smith, whose research will be discussed in much more detail in section four, estimates that 725K miles of driving are necessary to attain 99% certainty that the autonomous car is less likely to cause a traffic accident than a human (calculations are shown in Exhibit 1). Exhibit 1 6 Of Google s first 140,000 miles, only 1,000 were driven without the safety critical intervention. 7 Over the next 340,000 miles, Google drove 95,000 miles, or 28 percent, without human intervention. 8 Assuming Google maintains its current pace, it will surpass 725K miles sometime in However, if we assume Google will continue to improve and drive a larger portion of its miles without human intervention, then even a conservative estimate (50% of miles) has Google passing 725K miles in just three years. In this context, Brin s goal of driving one million miles and having autonomous cars available within the next five years appears very reasonable. Auto companies 6789 While Google s advances have proven the abilities and concept of the autonomous car, the introduction of automakers into the autonomous car world provides the manufacturing and distribution capabilities to bring the technology to the consumers. BMW began testing its autonomous cars in 2005 but did not move its tests onto public roads until BMW reports that its self-driving car has already clocked 10,000 test kilometers on the A9 motorway between Munich and Nuremberg. BMW has also signed agreements with Ibeo and Continental, two of the leading manufacturers in autonomous car technology, to help it accomplish its goal of having highly automated driving functions ready for commercial deployment by In 2012, Audi became the first automaker to be granted a license to operate autonomous cars on Nevada s roadways. Along with Lexus, Audi showed off its Avant A6 at the 2013 CES, which can drive autonomously at 37mph in heavy traffic. 10 It has been reported that Audi, through collaboration with Ibeo and Valeo, will include a feature on its A8 in 2016 that drive autonomously in traffic jams

3 Volvo began equipping all XC60 s with City Safety, its low-speed collision avoidance system, in 2010 and all S60 s in City Safety uses a light detection and ranging sensor built into the windshield to detect a stopped or slower-moving vehicle ahead. The Swedish insurer Volvia found this technology to reduce front-to-rear crashes by 23%. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that City Safety lowers overall losses by 21% for the S60 and 28% for the XC This is only the first step for Volvo. According to Anders Eugensson, head of Volvo s government affairs, (Volvo s) vision is that no one is killed or injured in a new Volvo by He added, We have tested prototypes on thousands of miles of test drives on public roads in Spain and on the company's test track in western Sweden. 13 Much of the rest of the industry is investing in similar technology aimed at making self-driving cars a reality. Nissan opened up an autonomous car research facility in Silicon Valley in 2012 to help them achieve their goal of having autonomous cars in showrooms by GM has announced plans to have semi-autonomous car available by 2015 and fully autonomous cars by Auto suppliers Auto suppliers and technology companies are developing their own systems to make self-driving cars a reality. Continental received its autonomous car license in Nevada on 12/19/2012, becoming the third company and only automobile supplier to do so. It has committed to having partially automated driving available by 2016, highly automated driving available by 2020 and fully automated driving available by Its automotive group has increased its R&D spend 22% over the past two years, and it has more than 1,300 employees developing self-driving technology. 16 Bosch has developed a traffic jam assist feature that enables cars to accelerate, steer, and brake at speeds up to 30mph. Bosch says this technology will begin appearing on new cars in Ibeo has developed a 6-sensor LUX laser scanner fusion system that provides a full 360 degree view around the vehicle and has been seamlessly integrated into a 5 series BMW for testing. 17 Ibeo has also agreed to equip an undisclosed German automaker with LIDAR technology (the same technology Google uses) in 2014 for $250 per vehicle. 18 Velodyne, whose LIDAR product has been the sensor of choice since its introduction in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, just completed a major expansion to keep up with demand. 19 Delphi offers a wide array of services, from adaptive cruise control, to a collision mitigation system, to various forward facing cameras and radars. Intel has even entered the fray, claiming that it wants to equip autonomous cars with its Intel Atom chips gmp_ gde_ _member_ gmp_ gde_ _member_ gmp_ gde_ _member_ gmp_ gde_ _member_

4 Government Governments have been conducting their own research on self-driving car technology. Working together with the automotive industry, 21 the U.S. DOT s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is researching how vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) systems can improve safety and mobility and whether they could be applied effectively in the real world. On August 21, 2012, the US DOT launched the last phase of its Safety Pilot with the goal of releasing a report and potential mandate on V2V and V2I in The European Commission spent over $1 billion in today s dollars researching autonomous cars in their Eureka Prometheus Project. On September 1, 2009, the European Commission embarked on a new venture with Volvo and other automotive companies, 23 Project SARTRE. In Project SARTRE, the Commission investigated the application of autonomous car technology through platooning. Platooning is when vehicles autonomously follow a manually driven lead vehicle, driven by a professional driver. Or put simply, platooning is a road train with vehicles. This allows cars to drive much closer together, making better use of the current highway space and using less fuel through the technique of drafting. While this is a less grand solution, it offers a quicker path to autonomous car implementation. While governments are unlikely to be the source of autonomous car technology, their involvement and investment in the process is essential to bring the technology to market. The United States and European Commission s commitment is a key ingredient in the technology s success. 2.2 Autonomous car technology A cursory understanding of self-driving technology is important to appreciate the current capabilities and the hurdles that still need to be overcome. Autonomous car technology is currently heading down two different paths, with the most likely solution involving some combination of the two technologies. Sensor based systems These systems, known as Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS), use a combination of advanced sensors and integrating software to enable cars to monitor and respond to their surroundings. Google s car employs a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) based system which creates a 360 degree view of the vehicle s environment. This technology has allowed Google to autonomously drive 500K miles without an accident, indicating that sensor based systems are sufficient for self-driving to succeed. Some ADAS solutions, such as lane-keeping and warning systems, adaptive cruise control, back-up alerts, and parking assistance, are already available to the consumer. 29% of 2013 models have optional forward collision warning. Of these, 12% have autonomous braking. 24 Acura, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, Toyota, and Volvo all include forward collision as standard on certain models. 21 Eight major automotive manufacturers are providing support for the Department s research through partnering agreements: Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai-Kia America Technical Center, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen SARTRE is led by Ricardo UK Ltd and comprises collaboration between the following additional participating companies: Idiada and Robotiker-Tecnalia of Spain, Institut for Kraftfahrwesen Aachen (IKA) of Germany, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Volvo Car Corporation and Volvo Technology of Sweden

5 Exhibit 2 Timeline of autonomous car accomplishments 25 Connectivity based solutions Connected-vehicle systems use wireless technologies to communicate in real time from vehicle to vehicle and from vehicle to infrastructure. According to the USDOT, as many as 80% of all crashes, excluding those in which the driver is impaired, could be mitigated using connected-vehicle technology. Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC), which uses radio waves, is currently the leading wireless medium for V2V communication. Currently, DSRC offers the greatest promise, because it is the only short-range wireless alternative that provides all of the following: 26 Fast network acquisition Low latency High reliability Priority for safety acquisitions Interoperability Security and privacy 25 The road graphic was adapted from KPMG s report: