IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE YOU WAKE UP, GRAB YOUR CUP OF COFFEE, AND HOP IN YOUR CAR TO DRIVE
TO WORK…
EXCEPT YOU’RE NOT DOING THE DRIVING.
YOU HAVE MORE TIME TO SLEEP, READ A BOOK, OR EVEN GET A PHYSICAL.
THIS IS A WORLD WE ALL WANT TO LIVE IN. AND ALTHOUGH WE’RE NOT QUITE THERE YET, PEOPLE
ALL OVER THE WORLD ARE WORKING ON DEVELOPING, TESTING, AND PLANNING FOR A
FUTURE WITH AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES.
BECAUSE, WHO DOESN’T WANT THAT EXTRA HOUR OF SLEEP?
SO, HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO A SELF-DRIVING WORLD?
YOU MAY HAVE SEEN SELF-DRIVING CARS ON THE NEWS, SPLASHED ACROSS THE INTERNET, OR EVEN
TESTING AROUND YOUR CITY.
BUT MOST OF THOSE CARS STILL HAVE A HUMAN IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT.
AND THAT MEANS IT’S PROBABLY A LEVEL 2 OR 3 CAR, WHICH DEFINITELY MORE INDEPENDENT THAN
THE CAR YOU MIGHT DRIVE, WHICH IS PROBABLY A LEVEL 0 OR 1, BUT IT'S STILL A FAR CRY FROM
OUR DREAM RIDE, WHICH WOULD BE A LEVEL 5.
OR 4.
LET ME EXPLAIN.
SAE INTERNATIONAL HAS DIVIDED AUTONOMY INTO FIVE STAGES.
LEVEL ONE IS “DRIVER ASSISTANCE,” AND LEVEL TWO IS “PARTIAL AUTOMATION,”
WHICH YOU CAN ALREADY FIND IN CARS WE DRIVE TODAY.
HERE, THE CAR CAN DO SOME OF THE STEERING, BRAKING, AND ACCELERATING, BUT STILL NEEDS
A DRIVER WITH HANDS ON THE WHEEL, BECAUSE LEVELS 1 AND 2 ARE STILL JUST “DRIVER SUPPORT.”
So lane keeping, collision warning, even active interventions that will swerve the vehicle
if you're about to get into an accident.
LEVEL THREE IS “CONDITIONAL AUTOMATION,” WHICH MEANS THAT THE CAR IS PRETTY MUCH IN
CONTROL, BUT REQUIRES HUMAN INTERVENTION IN AN EMERGENCY,
OR WHEN PROMPTED BY THE SYSTEM.
REMEMBER LEVEL THREE, BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE IT CAN GET STICKY.
BUT THE ULTIMATE SELF-DRIVING CAR WOULD BE OPERATING AT LEVEL 4 OR 5, WHERE IT CAN STEER,
BRAKE, ACCELERATE, MONITOR THE ROAD, RESPOND TO RANDOM EVENTS, CHOOSE TO CHANGE LANES,
TURN, AND OF COURSE…
USE ITS BLINKER LIKE ANY DECENT CITIZEN.
THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TOWARD SELF-DRIVING TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN A WINDING ONE.
DR. DEAN POMERLEAU HAS BEEN NAVIGATING IT FOR A LONG TIME.
YOU COULD CALL HIM THE GRANDFATHER, OR AT LEAST THE COOL UNCLE,
OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES.
BACK IN 1995, DEAN AND HIS GRADUATE STUDENT MADE A PILGRIMAGE ACROSS THE COUNTRY
"LOOK MA, NO HANDS”-STYLE, AFTER THEY TRICKED OUT A STYLISH MINIVAN WITH CAMERAS
AND COMPUTER VISION ALGORITHMS.
About 98.2% of the trip, as I recall, was hands-off, feet-off, with the system controlling
the vehicle all on its own.
It was a proof of concept, basically, for some of the technologies that we're seeing
finally being deployed today.
IN THE YEARS THAT FOLLOWED, RESEARCH TEAMS COMPETED
TO DEVELOP THAT TECHNOLOGY FURTHER.
IT WASN’T UNTIL 2005, AFTER SOME…
CATASTROPHIC FAILURES, THAT DARPA’S GRAND CHALLENGE TO BUILD A SELF-DRIVING CAR FINALLY
AWARDED FIRST PLACE TO A STANFORD TEAM, LED BY SEBASTIAN THRUN.
YEAH, YOU MIGHT’VE SEEN HIM AROUND.
FAST FORWARD TO 2009, WHEN HE STARTS A LITTLE PROJECT CALLED WAYMO.
IN SECRET.
IN 2016, WAYMO SPINS OFF FROM GOOGLE, AND IN A FEW SHORT YEARS, THE INDUSTRY’S ERUPTED,
WITH ESTABLISHED TECH AND CAR COMPANIES JUST AS EAGER AS STARTUPS TO GET IN ON THE ACTION.
Waymo is probably the recognized leader.
GM bought Cruise Automation; Argo AI here in Pittsburgh is one leading player;
BMW Mercedes, are all working on their own projects for self-driving cars.
It remains to be seen whether it's a good investment or not.
FOR THAT INVESTMENT TO PAY OFF, DRIVERLESS TECHNOLOGY MUST BE REFINED TO THE POINT
WHERE IT’S BOTH RELIABLE AND FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO HANDLE A COMPLEX JOURNEY.
THAT MEANS SOPHISTICATED SENSORS, ROBUST COMPUTER HARDWARE,
AND INTELLIGENT DECISION-MAKING SOFTWARE.
TO START WITH, AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES RELY ON SOMETHING NOT ALL HUMAN DRIVERS
ARE EQUIPPED WITH: A SENSE OF DIRECTION.
The companies that are building these self-driving cars build their own maps.
Very much like Google has its street-view cars that drive through neighborhoods and
collect map data, they have another fleet with many additional sensors to drive through
a city and map it in great detail –static obstacles, like telephone poles or the curbs
around the road, that it should be aware of and avoid.
BUT TO BE TRULY ADAPTIVE, THE CAR NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO GATHER REAL-TIME INFORMATION ABOUT
A DYNAMIC, UNPREDICTABLE ENVIRONMENT.
ELON MUSK THINKS WE CAN ACCOMPLISH THIS WITH CAMERAS ALONE.
BUT IF YOU’VE EVER TAKEN A SELFIE IN THE CLUB, YOU KNOW THAT CAMERAS PROBABLY AREN’T
GOING TO CUT IT, BECAUSE THEY STILL STRUGGLE WITH DARKNESS, DEPTH, AND REFLECTIONS.
So self-driving-car companies are investigating many different sensors, for example, millimeter
wave radars for long-range sensing, and short-range, often ultrasound, sensors that see things
that are very close to the vehicle.
LiDAR is probably the most common and most impressive technology currently being used.
LiDAR is a laser-based technology that shoots a laser beam out into the environment, scans
it very quickly, and detects the range to objects and other vehicles.
LiDARs are both a great sensor but also a weak link; they're very expensive and
break down fairly often.
AND THIS HAS BEEN A MAJOR ROADBLOCK TO FULLY AUTONOMOUS ROADS.
LIDAR HAS HUGE POTENTIAL, BUT IT’S JUST TOO DELICATE AT THE MOMENT, BECAUSE IT’S
MADE UP OF FRAGILE, MOVING PARTS.
BUT SOMETHING CALLED SOLID-STATE LIDAR, WHICH SCANS THE ENVIRONMENT USING NO MOVING PARTS
COULD CHANGE ALL THAT.
AND THESE SENSORS, WHILE IN THEIR INFANCY, ARE IN SUCH DEMAND THAT MANUFACTURERS LITERALLY
CAN’T MAKE THEM FAST ENOUGH TO SUPPLY THE DEMANDS OF COMPANIES LIKE FORD AND BAIDU.
It's much more reliable and also much cheaper to manufacture, which is very important if
you're going to do this at scales on thousands of vehicles.
OKAY, SO SAY WE CAN BUILD A DRIVING ROBOT.
THAT IS, AN ENTITY THAT CAN PERCEIVE ITS ENVIRONMENT, JUDGE, AND ACT ON THE ROAD
BASED ON A COMPLEX NETWORK OF REAL-TIME DATA ANALYSIS.
IN A WAY, IT’S STILL ONLY PREPARED TO DRIVE ON A MAP.
TO BE ABLE TO NAVIGATE IN THE REAL WORLD, AND SHARE THE ROAD, AND THE STEERING WHEEL,
WITH HUMAN DRIVERS, WE’LL NEED TO TAKE IT TO DRIVER’S ED.
Some of the biggest safety concerns are involved with perception and behavior
of drivers or pedestrians or cyclists.
Slushy roads covered with ice and snow are very hard to cope with, and there's really
been very little effort or progress in self-driving cars in these very challenging environments.
TO MAKE THAT PROGRESS, WE HAVE TO STUDY HOW HUMAN DRIVERS ACTUALLY RESPOND – BOTH TO
RISKY ROAD CONDITIONS, AND TO AUTONOMY ITSELF.
SO TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE HUMAN IN THE WHOLE EQUATION, WE HEADED TO STANFORD’S
AUTOMOTIVE INNOVATION LAB.
We are working together to really get a detailed understanding of the human as we move forward
in designing active safety systems and automated vehicles.
So, we're gonna set up this NIRS cap on her right now.
It will be shining a little bit of infrared light onto her motor cortex.
We'll be able to see as she's turning left, turning right, using the gas pedal and the
brake pedal, all in our data streams back there.
The majority of accidents that we do see do come down to human error in either recognition,
decision, or performance.
So when we can get to the point where the system does a better job at those three things
than humans, then I think it's clear that our roads will be safer.
This is X-1, our experimental test vehicle.
The flexibility in steering allows us to set up all sorts of experiments.
We can emulate driving on an unexpected change of friction.
Going from snow to ice, for example.
There are studies going on in the dynamic design lab, measuring the inputs that professional
drivers make, so that we can try and understand what they're doing differently to drive right
at the limits of the vehicle. We can use that to inform the way that the autonomous vehicle
control algorithms are designed, so that hopefully, your autonomous vehicle will drive as well
as the very best human driver.
LENE’S MOST RECENT PROJECT INVESTIGATED A SCENARIO THAT MIGHT POP UP IN SOMETHING
LIKE LEVEL 3 AUTONOMY, WHERE THE CAR’S BEEN ROLLING SOLO WHEN SUDDENLY, IT ENCOUNTERS
SOME SCENARIO IT CAN’T MAKE SENSE OF, AND THE HUMAN DRIVER IS ASKED TO INTERVENE.
What our studies of brain and behavior tell us is that it's important to consider a period
of time when people's driving behavior may be significantly different if they've taken
control of a vehicle after a certain amount of time out of the loop.
We can see almost in real time the cognitive resources being deployed. They may have more
limited cognitive resources to deal with an emergency situation under those conditions.
It's potentially a quite dangerous situation if you're handing off control back and forth
with the system.
THOUGH IT MAY SEEM EXTREME FOR CONSUMERS TO MAKE THE JUMP FROM CRUISING AROUND
IN A LEVEL 1 CAR TO HOPPING IN A FULLY AUTONOMOUS ONE,
MANY RESEARCHERS AGREE THAT PARTIAL AUTONOMY
SHOULD ONLY BE RESERVED FOR TESTING PURPOSES.
AND UNFORTUNATELY, MOST OF THE ACCIDENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY OCCURRED HAVE
PROVEN THEM RIGHT.
I think the next five years or so of autonomous vehicle design is actually going to focus
more on the ways in which we can implement full autonomy in a much smaller, more controlled
environment, and sort of do it that way rather than necessarily going through this partial
autonomy stage to get there.
People are easily distractible, and that's the underlying problem that autonomous vehicles
are setting out to solve.
So NACTO cities believe that it needs to be really full automation to achieve the safety
benefits that are the major promise behind autonomous vehicles.
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CITY TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS
REPRESENTS 68 CITIES AND 11 TRANSIT
AGENCIES ACROSS NORTH AMERICA.
NACTO RECENTLY CONVENED TO DISCUSS HOW THE WORLD WILL PREPARE
FOR FULLY AUTONOMOUS CARS
TO BECOME A REALITY.
It's unrealistic to expect city governments to redesign streets
to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
THIS MEANS, WHEN SELF-DRIVING CARS DO HIT THE ROAD, THEY’LL NEED TO TRAVEL AT LOW
SPEEDS, AND MAKE USE OF OUR EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE.
BECAUSE OVER THE PAST CENTURY, WE’VE MADE COUNTLESS COMPROMISES
TO ACCOMMODATE THE SHINY NEW TECHNOLOGY OF THE TIME…
THE AUTOMOBILE.
BUT URBAN PLANNERS THINK WE CAN DO BETTER THIS TIME AROUND.
We've seen neighborhoods cut off from opportunities, we've seen congestion, greenhouse gas emissions,
pollution, decreases in public health… we risk repeating a lot of those same mistakes
with autonomous vehicles.
The Bblueprint for Autonomous Urbanism came about because we were seeing too many visions
for driverless cars in a people-less city.
The Blueprint is imagining how cities can structure their streets to prioritize walking
and biking and transit and public space, to really maximize those benefits of living and
being in a city, while using autonomous vehicles to help achieve those goals.
THE IMAGES YOU SEE HERE ARE JUST SKETCHES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE.
THE REALITY IS, REGULATION FOR THESE KINDS OF VEHICLES IS PRETTY NEW – AND
IT’S DIFFERENT IN EVERY STATE.
BUT PLANNERS AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS LARGELY AGREE ON THE NEED FOR EQUAL ACCESS,
SAFETY, AND SUSTAINABILITY.
It requires really thoughtful and intentional policies to make that vision and that promise
a reality.
SO, HUMANS ARE ADAPTABLE LEARNERS.
AND WE’RE DESIGNING SYSTEMS THAT CAN WORK THAT WAY TOO.
BUT ON A GRANDER SCALE, WE AS A SOCIETY HAVE TO BE WILLING TO ASSESS RISK, AND STEER IN
THE RIGHT DIRECTION BEFORE WE CHANGE LANES AND CHARGE FULL SPEED AHEAD.
SO…
HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO A DRIVERLESS WORLD?
If you look at particular geographical locations, it's already happening.
Over time, I believe that those islands will grow in number and expand, and that's how
you will see the expansion of fully automated vehicles on the road.
I think in the next year or two we will see companies like Waymo and GM Cruise deploying
maybe a few hundred of these vehicles for the general public to ride in.
Probably by early 2020s, we'll see cars without drivers giving rides and then driving empty
to pick up the next passenger.
It'll be probably at least a decade, I would say, before you can walk into a showroom and
buy a car at an affordable price that can do, say, level four or five autonomy, which
means you don't have to do anything.
The fact that Waymo's CEO said we're still quite a ways off makes me think
that that's probably true.
But in the near term, I think there are some applications, especially for transit, to use
autonomous technology to achieve some of our goals.
Access to affordable, convenient transportation is really important.
We all have a grandparent or a friend of our grandparents who had to give up driving and
lost a lot of their independence.
I think it can change lives and save lives across the board as long as we take into consideration
everyone across the spectrum as we as a society move forward with automated vehicles.
SOUNDS LIKE AS LONG AS WE TAKE CARE OF SOME POTHOLES FIRST…
WE’VE GOT A GREEN LIGHT.
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