Audi wants to make fighting traffic jams easier on drivers
Automaker has clever, innovative tricks up its sleeve for managing slowdowns
One minute we are flexing the new Audi A8’s considerable muscle, then the next we round a bend and hit Dusseldorf rush hour. The instant the speed drops to below 60 km/h, the car announces that Traffic Jam Pilot is ready to go. With the simple push of a button, we enter the eerie world of autonomous driving.
It was then that the now-redundant driver turned on the central screen so we could watch a video about the system’s capabilities. For the next 20 minutes the car became the driver, with absolutely no intervention from the person behind the wheel. Welcome to tomorrow’s autonomous world.
The A8 is set to become the first car to offer Level 3 autonomous driving capabilities. As it stands, Level 2 is the only permitted level outside of Germany and, of all places, Florida. Level 2 allows the driver to use the adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist for short periods, but nothing more; if the driver’s hands are not sensed on the steering wheel in short order, the system warns the driver and then shuts down, absolving itself of all driving responsibilities.
Level 3 autonomous driving opens up a whole new dimension where the driver will be able to hand over the driving responsibility to the car. If it makes a mistake, the manufacturer, according to Audi (and Volvo), the company pays. That’s putting both out on a tenuous limb, given the litigious nature of North America.
It is wonderful stuff that is only hog-tied by the law. Today, legislation often drives technology (think Quebec’s recent edict that electric cars will rule La Belle Province). In the case of autonomous driving, the technology is ready and able, and merely waiting for the legislators to catch up.
The new A8 has sensors galore that produce a picture-perfect image of the car’s surroundings and it has — to use the vernacular — its arse covered every which way. The system relies on 12 ultrasonic (a.k.a. parking) sensors, four corner radars, one long-range, frontmounted radar (that sees up to 200 metres down the road and has the ability to monitor the car in front of the car ahead), a camera, and a laser detector (Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR) with four layers.
Combined, the sensors paint a clear 360-degree picture of the car’s environment. The gathered information is then ingested, analyzed and the correct driving response dispatched to the steering, brakes or accelerator in mere nanoseconds by a brain Audi calls Z-Fas. It will become the decision maker that renders the driver surplus to need.
It sounds so complex — and it is — but the underlying principle is to create an image, much like a human sees and senses, and then dispatch driving instructions in the same manner as its human counterpart. The combination of sensors also gives the car the mandatory amount of redundancy. If, for example, the camera is blinded by fog, the radars pick up the slack and on it goes.
Likewise, if the brakes fail there is a backup system that uses the good old brake pedal to stop the car. In autonomous driving situations, the system uses the ABS to slow or stop the car. But if it has a brain cramp, there’s an electric motor that physically applies pressure to the brake pedal.
This logic pervades just about everything connected to Audi’s Piloted Drive system. If the central Z-Fas computer fails, the forward facing radar can take over in a pinch. To ensure it does not fail, both use completely different operating logic, so one “virus” cannot affect both.
For those moments when the automated driver cannot do the driving, the system has a threestage intervention process. It first issues both audible and visual warnings, and if the driver does nothing, it then snugs up the seatbelt and pulses the brakes in attempt to rouse a sleepy driver. If there is still no action, it will stop the car, and if absolutely necessary, alert emergency services of the situation.
The reason so much money is being dispatched to the whole autonomous driving world is simple: it is the loose nut (a.k.a. the driver) behind the wheel that causes so much carnage. Remove emotion and distracted driving, and replace it with clinical thinking, and the roads would be a safer place.
The rationale for Traffic Jam Pilot was explained very simply: in Germany, the average driver spends about 60 hours a year sitting, doing absolutely nothing other than cursing the fact they are stuck in traffic. And that number does not include those times when a truck rolls over and puts a daylong crimp in traffic flow. Eliminating the tedious task of driving under these conditions will give the driver more time — dare I say the four letter word? — to work. Beyond that, it will cut the amount of metal carnage, Audi says.
As the system has the ability to see beyond the car ahead, it is already prepared for a sudden stop. That forward-facing radar mentioned earlier actually skips its signal off the road and the underbody of the car ahead to see past it to what lies in front. As I say — freaky.
All have heard of the two second rule. The problem is that the reaction time for a human driver lies between 0.7 and three seconds, the average being around one second. Glance at the phone for two seconds, look up, react by braking and bang! You just rear-ended the car ahead because the cumulative time of distraction and reaction exceeded the two-second rule.
Computers, on the other hand, don’t read text messages and have the foresight of radars, LIDAR and cameras making them capable of seeing the immediate surroundings and past the car ahead so nothing comes as a surprise. Does this mean a safer world? You bet. Does it destroy the joy of driving? I’ll leave that for you to decide.