Accelerating towards a driverless future

Cars speeding along a motorway set in a futuristic landscape populated by beings dressed in silver metallic suits used to be the stuff of comics and those deep into science fiction. However, some of those imaginative images could well become reality within the next 10 years as autonomous or driverless vehicles steer out of the laboratory and onto the roads.

The concept of driverless cars is almost as old as motoring itself. It has been a dream of enthusiasts for many years, but only now has the technology caught up with the vision to create a practical vehicle that can be both safe and efficient, and some of this work is going on in Australia.

The history of autonomous cars goes back to at least the 1920s when a radio-controlled car was demonstrated travelling up Broadway and down Fifth Ave in New York. The car, called the ‘linrrican wonder’ contained circuit breakers and small electric motors that were controlled by radio signals transmitted from a following vehicle.

At the heart of this new generation of vehicles are sensors, but they have to be almost human to be aware of the vehicle and surrounding objects - particularly other vehicles. To do this they use a variety of technologies including proximity sensors, radar, lidar (light detection and ranging), GPS and cameras combined with sophisticated computer software and artificial intelligence.

The potential advantages of this utopia are enormous - better traffic management and, most importantly, fewer accidents with a consequent lessening of hospital treatment and trauma.

Wireless communication channels

Dedicated short range communication (DSRC) technology isa vital component of autonomous vehicles. It is based on published standards developed by international organisations and, with the backing of global vehicle manufacturers, the system ensures that vehicles from different manufacturers can interoperate.

The system combines radio connectivity, accurate positioning using GPS and vehicle dead reckoning, and, of course, an onboard computer. This allows vehicles to communicate with each other using what are called V2V links and to roadside units (vehicle to infrastructure or V21 links).

Using a dedicated radio frequency of 5.9 GHz, just outside the Wi-Fi band, the system allows vehicles to ‘see around corners’ and ‘see through’ other vehicles, and it permits infrastructure to know about detailed traffic movements and communicate with vehicles.

It also provides an open standardised platform for traffic flow management, road and conditions monitoring, traffic scheduling and route selection. DSRC-equipped vehicles that broadcast basic safety messages 10 times a second give information of latitude and longitude, speed, heading, four-way acceleration, brake status, steering wheel angle, throttle position and vehicle size. It can also avert possible intersection crashes, rear-end collisions, dangerous overtaking and lane drift, and an onboard unit can alert drivers visually or audibly.

Australia’s role

At the forefront of these developments is Australian company Cohda Wireless, which was formed by researchers at the University of South Australia’s Institute for Telecommunications Research and now has headquarters in Melbourne with offices in Germany and the US. The company works closely with shareholders, Cisco Systems and XPP Semiconductor.

“V2X (vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure) communications need reliable sensors to fulfil their potential,” said Cohda’s CEO, Paul Gray.

“VX2 allows vehicles to share their sensor data with other vehicles around them. Standard sensors such as radar, optical, ultrasonic and lidar are all line-of-sight and can only detect visible risks. VX2 is a non-line-of-sight sensor with 360° awareness that can detect hidden-from-view threats,” he said. He went on to add that the system’s reliability is critical for not only between two cars that are driving down a straight road but also for two cars approaching each other around a blind corner, over the crest of a hill, at freeway speeds or when there are trucks between them.

Autonomous vehicles could revolutionise the huge trucking industry in this country and revitalise the industry, according to Dr James Ward, a researcher with the Intelligent Vehicles and Safety Systems Group, Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney.

Among other lines of research, this group, too, is looking at how vehicles can understand and react intelligently with their environments. He says that vehicles can become a distributed sensor network and that far from taking away the pleasure of driving these new systems could add fun to their experience as society changes its views on driving and vehicle ownership.

Developments around the world

Outside special equipment manufacturers, there is plenty of action going on by car makers and other research organisations. For example, Mercedes, General Motors, Nissan, Toyota, Audi and Volvo are actively engaged in developing driverless systems. In 2010, four electric autonomous vans drove 21,000 km from Italy to China in a project backed by the European Union and Vistab of the University of Parma.

In July 2013 a robotic vehicle, without any human interference, drove through Parma, navigating roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and traffic lights. In the meantime, Nissan says it is building a dedicated proving ground in Japan and will announce several driverless vehicles in 2020. The company’s electric Leaf is being used in some of the trials and as an autonomous vehicle it has already been allowed on Japanese roads.

In Europe, the first self-driving vehicle for commercial sale was released by French company Induct Technology in January this year. Called the Navia, it is limited to 20 km/h and resembles a golf cart seating up to eight people. It will be used to shuttle people around large industrial sites, airports, theme parks, university campuses, vehicle-free city shopping centres and hospital complexes.

Now Google has come onto the scene - in May it said it plans to unveil 100 prototypes built inside the company’s secret lab.

Challenges remain

So advanced are some of the systems becoming that last year four states in the US - Nevada, Florida, California and Michigan - passed laws allowing driverless vehicles. In Europe, Belgium, Italy and France plan to operate transport networks using driverless vehicles.

However, some major issues with this form of transport still have to be overcome. These include software reliability and cybersecurity where a car’s computer could be hacked to destroy the integrity of the vehicle.

Today, driverless vehicles raise as many ethical issues as they do technical because once some sort of human control is removed, who then do you call to account in the event of a human death caused by such a vehicle? But this then comes down to whether or not a human inside the vehicle has any control. If s/he is just a passenger then s/he surely cannot be held responsible for the vehicle and its performance. If s/he does have some sort of control, how much and was s/he capable of avoiding a hazardous situation?

Questions like these and the question of insurance liability are not for engineers to answer. However, in creating an autonomous car they have produced devices that will have ethicists and lawyers scratching their heads for a few years yet