Autonomous Driving – How Close Are We?
Autonomous driving, where your car manages all aspects of the actual job by itself, was once the stuff of mere science fiction, but today, it’s not just close, it’s already here… sort of.
You see, it turns out autonomous driving isn’t an ‘on or off’ thing, there’s a sliding scale where humans do less and computer wizardry does more, all the way up to the point where humans aren’t required at all. There are 6 levels on this scale, but like all computer related methods of counting, you start from zero!
So what are those levels and will this transform car and van hire as we know it?
Level 0: Not Autonomous At All
The first level of autonomous driving is pre-automation. As in, not automated at all. This is where every bit of the driving job is the sole responsibility of the driver. This level covers most vehicles. Cars and vans can have (and do have) a lot of driver assistance technology, but what counts as autonomous driving is where the actual job of driving is partially or fully delegated to the vehicle. For example, emergency automatic braking, while it’s true, it’s there to assist the driver, (we’ll come to driver assistance in a moment), applying the brakes doesn’t count as ‘driving’, so doesn’t (on this technicality) count towards the automated driving scale.
Level 1 : Assisted Driving
Assisted driving is the first proper step on the scale of driving automation. As the name suggests, the driver is still in charge, but the vehicle is able to help out in a meaningful way with the job of driving. For a vehicle to be regarded as having level 1 automation, it must have just a single technology to help the driver. This could be radar/adaptive cruise control, where the car is able to adjust the speed to keep pace with the vehicle in front by controlling the acceleration and deceleration. It could be lane keeping assist where the car is able to control the steering in order to keep the car in lane. If both these technologies were combined however, that would push the vehicle to the next level of automation.
Level 2: Partially Automated Driving
As above, having more than one technology which would by itself put a vehicle in the level 1 category, lifts a vehicle to level 2 on the vehicle automation scale. The ‘driver’ is still the human and the human driver must still be fully engaged with the task of driving. The vehicle needs to be fully supervised by an alert driver when it takes over any aspects of the driving function. In practice, many vehicles are at level 2, even Teslas despite their advanced features have achieved a notional level of 2.5 – clever, but not true automation.
Level 3: Conditional Autonomous Driving
This is the lowest level of what might be regarded as ‘true automation’. For a vehicle to be regarded as having level 3 automated driving, it must be able to handle the task of driving by itself in certain circumstances, even initiate overtaking or evasive maneuvers, allowing the driver to disengage fully from the act of driving, but the driver will still need to remain alert in case they’re asked by the vehicle to re-take control should the computers be faced with something they can’t figure out how to deal with.
Level 4: High Level Automation
Similar to level 3, vehicles at level 4 automation can handle driving by themselves, but crucially they can, in nearly all circumstances deal with the unexpected without needing to trouble the human ‘driver’. The human can still choose to take control and must remain able to drive, but this is no longer necessary for the most part. If the human doesn’t respond to the request for assistance, the vehicle is able to bring itself to a safe stop and park.
Level 5: Fully Autonomous Driving
As the name suggests, this is the level where any humans are mere passengers and the vehicle is the driver. Think having your own chauffeur, but ‘Jeeves’ is a robot. No human in the car needs to be able to drive, or even hold a license.
What’s Delaying Autonomous Cars?
Believe it or not, it’s not technology holding back autonomous cars. In terms of autonomous driving, the Mercedes EQS is the only car currently on UK roads which is capable of level 3 automation, although at the time of typing, this level isn’t permitted to be actually used. The law needs to catch up with the technology. This is in the pipeline though.
So how about cars with automation levels four and five then? Believe it or not, they already exist. There aren’t many and none are available commercially just yet, but the technology already exists. It’s going to be quite some time, with a colossal amount of testing before they’re released into the wild, but, as we said, the holdup isn’t the technology, the main things getting in the way of fully autonomous vehicles is the law and human drivers!
It turns out, as you might expect, that the hardest part of driving is dealing with humans. Drivers can be unpredictable, irrational, uncooperative and somewhat laissez-faire when it comes to following the rules. The exact opposite of a driving robot. In order to safely navigate the roads, these robots have to deal with the weirdness and danger posed by other drivers. Harder than it seems. Additionally, people, in general, are uncomfortable with the idea of non-people driving. The robots need PR as well as AI!
The law is another sticking point. A driver caught breaking the rules will get whatever sanctions match the transgression, but things get a bit less clear when the driver committing an offence or causing an accident might be a human or might be a robot. How might a traffic officer work out for sure whether the robot was in charge at the time of an offense?
If it’s definitely the robot that’s to blame, who is responsible for it? The human ‘driver’? The owner? The manufacturer? There’s also the well known thought experiment ‘The Trolley Problem’ to consider – (where a train will hit 5 people unless a bystander pulls a lever to divert it onto a track where it will hit one person).
In this scenario, every action of an autonomous car will be based on an algorithm. In a no win scenario, the car might have to choose what, or who to hit. In this case, the manufacturer (or the programmer) is essentially the one with the lever and must decide the outcome of potentially life or death decisions in advance.
While these are bumps in the road, there have been many £Millions already invested by The Government in supporting the introduction of autonomous vehicles. It’s predicted that the first fully autonomous vehicles could be seen on UK roads as soon as 2025, level 3 automation will be much sooner.
Would you have an autonomous car or van?
