Tag Archives: Vehicular automation

Automated vs. Autonomous, Dr. Scott Washburn’s Take

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University of Florida Gator Engineering

We recently talked with Dr. Scott Washburn, Associate Professor in Transportation Engineering from the University of Florida Civil and Coastal Engineering Department. Dr. Washburn explained that in 2013 he and his colleagues formed a transportation institute, called the University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI), under the College of Engineering.

Dr. Scott Washburn

Dr. Scott Washburn, Associate Professor in Transportation Engineering from the University of Florida Civil and Coastal Engineering Department

The intent of the UFTI is to bring together faculty and staff from multiple departments across campus (such as computer science, mechanical engineering, urban and regional planning, and even occupational therapy) with expertise and interest in transportation issues. The UFTI not only focuses on research, but also specializes in education and technology transfer. As defined on their website, the UFTI aims to advance the transportation state-of-the-art, disseminate research results, and provide educational opportunities related to transportation across the lifespan. Florida has recently passed legislation allowing the testing of autonomous vehicles on its roads (under very specific conditions) and as a result the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is aggressively pursuing a research agenda to facilitate the move toward a completely autonomous highway system. The UFTI has been part of the initial discussions with the FDOT for shaping this research agenda, and they anticipate being a key partner to the FDOT in carrying out this research agenda. However, research in the area of autonomous vehicles is hardly new to UFTI, as affiliated researchers in the mechanical engineering department built autonomous vehicles to compete in the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.

Currently, Dr. Washburn spends his time teaching one or two classes per semester, advising students, and conducting research. Dr. Washburn’s research focus areas include Traffic Operations, Level of Service, and Statistical and Computational Methods. In support of his research, Dr. Washburn makes extensive use of simulation, especially custom simulation programs that he develops. An area he has recently been focusing on is using simulation to study the impacts of driverless transportation on traffic operations.

trafficflow

What became of particular interest as we spoke was Dr. Washburn’s distinction between two words that are often used interchangeably in this industry: autonomous and automated.

Autonomous, he explained, is the type of work that Google is focusing on. An autonomous vehicle is one that is completely independent, not subject to any outside control. In the automated highway system, autonomous vehicles do not need any additional input from the infrastructure beyond what is currently in place. He explained that less reliance on additional infrastructure is appealing, as it leads to fewer complexities, fewer costs, and fewer possibilities for someone to hack into. He explained that as far as Google is concerned, with this approach you may not get as optimal traffic flow conditions, but by reducing investment costs and reducing overall complexities, you get a system in which fewer things could go wrong.

What he explained about automated vehicles, however, is that they involve some level of coordination between the vehicles and the roadway infrastructure (sometimes referred to as connected vehicles). In this system, the vehicle is not entirely independent. This could mean vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and/or roadside communications. The U.S. Department of Transportation defines vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication as the wireless exchange of critical safety and operational data between vehicles and highway infrastructure, intended primarily to avoid or mitigate motor vehicle crashes but also to enable a wide range of other safety, mobility and environmental benefits. Automated vehicles generate information from other nearby vehicles and traffic control devices, which are deployed by the DOT. This system provides vehicles with a rich set of information and data, thus leading to a safer and more efficient driving environment.

Although Dr. Washburn was hesitant to make predictions on when we will see implementations of automated/autonomous vehicles, as he feels the odds of predicting this correctly are about as good as predicting the “Final Four” correctly, he predicted that we would see a partial implementation of automated vehicles on our roads around the year 2035. He did indicate that policy issues were likely to affect the implementation timeline more than the technology issues.

If you’re interested in learning more about the work that the UFTI does, be sure to check out the UFTI webpage http://www.transportation.institute.ufl.edu/ simulation

State Laws

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In a previous blog entry, we discussed why we think Virginia should be one of the hubs for Driverless Technology, and talked about working to get a law passed in Virginia about this.  We’ve been working this.

Since then, we’ve met with Jim Duffey, Virginia’s Secretary of Technology at the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology.  However, Secretary Duffey is on his way out as we have a new governor from a different party recently elected (but not yet sworn in) so we didn’t make much progress.  We’ll try to meet with his successor (once he has been identified) as soon as we can.  We’re also going to start meeting with our state delegates and senators.

We’re working now to continue our research both to gain a better understanding of where things stand today, and to come up with logical ways of moving forward.

As you can see in the image below from Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, three states, California, Nevada and Florida, plus the District of Columbia have passed laws around Driverless Technology.

State DT Laws

We also talked to Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. Mr. Walker Smith is one of the leading (if not the leading) experts on the legal issues regarding driverless technology.  Mr. Walker Smith stated that there isn’t anything preventing the operation of driverless cars in any state.  When the laws were written no one contemplated a car that would drive itself.  (Click here for Mr. Walker Smith’s paper on this.)

The California law actually state that California law “presently does not prohibit or specifically regulate the operation of autonomous vehicles.”.  It also requires additional rule making by the end of 2014.  The Nevada law “directs state DMV to adopt rules for license endorsement and for operation, including insurance, safety standards, and testing[1].

A big risk if each state puts together its own guidelines is that we get a complex mix of rules that hinder the development and launch of the technology.  This is a real risk.  The NHTSA (National High Transportation and Safety Administration) is urging states to be careful and in their Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles:

In general, we believe that states are well suited to address issues such as licensing, driver training, and conditions for operation related to specific types of vehicles.  NHTSA has considerable concerns, however, about detailed state regulation on safety of self-driving vehicles for purposes other than testing.

The NHTSA goes on to recommend that state level legislation contains the following provisions:

  • Ensure that the Driver Understands How to Operate a Self-Driving Vehicle Safely
  • Ensure that On-road Testing of Self-driving Vehicles Minimizes Risks to Other Road Users
  • Limit Testing Operations to Roadway, Traffic and Environmental Conditions Suitable for the Capabilities of the Tested Self-Driving Vehicles
  • Establish Reporting Requirements to Monitor the Performance of Self-Driving Technology during Testing
  • Ensure that the Process for Transitioning from Self-Driving Mode to Driver Control is Safe, Simple and Timely
  • Self-Driving Test Vehicles Should Have the Capability of Detecting, Recording, and Informing the Driver that the System of Automated Technologies has Malfunctioned
  • Ensure that Installation and Operation of any Self-Driving Vehicle Technologies does not Disable any Federally Required Safety Features or Systems
  • Ensure that Self-Driving Test Vehicles Record Information about Status of Automated Control Technologies in the Event of a Crash or Loss of Vehicle Control

As we stated in out last blog, we think that Virginia makes an ideal location for another hub around driverless technology.  While technically, there is no requirement to put a new law in place in order to allow testing of these vehicles, we believe it makes sense for the legislature to put some guidelines around it and that those outlined by the NHTSA are a very good starting point.  Consequently, we are going to continue to pursue this and to recommend this type of bill.

[1] The Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Getting Started

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Since we started DriverlessTransportation.com last summer, we’ve been amazed at the amount of information that is available on the topic.  It seems that every month multiple reports come out, and every day there is more news. We list more than one news item per day and filter out at least 4 others.  (Generally these are the same basic story by a different news organization).  Given the large volume, unless you are highly committed to the topic (like we are!) you’re not going to have the time to read it all; therefore we’ve put together this little primer to help you get started.

First let’s start with some terminology and a few definitions.

  • Autonomous or Driverless Vehicles - These basically mean the same thing.  Ultimately this will be a vehicle that drives itself; the human being simply needs to give it a destination.  This complete automation is probably a decade (or two) away.  In the interim there are different levels of automation, where the vehicle still maintains a driver and sometimes the vehicle does the driving and sometimes the human does it.
  • Connected Vehicles - In addition, technology is being developed to allow vehicles to talk to each other (V2V) and to the roadway infrastructure (V2I).  These technologies will allow vehicles (initially through their human driver) to operate more safely.

So why all the fuss about this?  There are two main factors that are driving the big push in this technology.  The first is safety.  There are about 32,000 people killed each year in auto accidents in the US alone.  It is the leading cause of death for young people and is a larger part of our healthcare costs than any other cause.  In the developing world, the problem is even greater and more than a million people are killed each year.

The second is economics.  Driverless Vehicles have the potential to greatly change the costs in a number of industries from trucking to taxis to delivery.  (It will actually impact a lot more than that but we’ll talk about those in a future blog entry).  Driverless transportation also has the potential to reduce the operating costs of vehicles and to change the way cars are purchased so that consumers can save money through a driverless car service instead of owning a car.  Again, we will go into more detail on these as well as some potential negative effects in future blog entries.So that is the big picture.  Besides our blog (be sure to Follow us to get updates), here is what we see as top 5 things to read:

  1. The ENO Center for Transportation Report: Preparing a Nation for Autonomous Vehicles: Opportunities, Barriers and Policy Recommendations.  This is a very good high level summary of where things stand and where they may be headed.
  2. The GAO Report on Connected Vehicles.  A good summary of how the DOT is driving standards for Connected Vehicles and the types of applications they can be used for.
  3. Popular Science’s article entitled “Inside Google’s Quest To Popularize Self-Driving Cars” gives really good insights into what Google can do today and where they are headed.
  4. Automotive News describes what automakers are doing and how they see driverless technology rolling out in stages.
  5. The Mail Online describes how town centers in the UK will be changed with driverless pod cars.

If you’d rather see video, here are 4 that we’d recommend:

  1. MSNBC takes a driverless car from Carnegie Mellon & GM out for a ride.
  2. CBS Good Morning shows you what it is like behind the wheel of a driverless racecar at Stanford.
  3. Author Chunka Mui discusses how driverless cars will transform a $2 trillion economy and save hundreds of billions of dollars because of fewer accidents.
  4. In a TED talk Sebastian Thrun, who works for both Stanford and Google, talks about what has motivated him in his work towards driverless cars.