The slow crawl toward full autonomy
Autonomous cars are a bit like that cookie jar on the counter — tantalizingly close, visible even, but just out of reach. With the level of technology that we’ve attained, and with several years of test vehicles successfully navigating areas of California and beyond, why haven’t self-driving cars made it to showrooms yet?
In some ways, they have. It’s important to understand there are six levels of autonomous vehicle operation, as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International’s J3016 standard. In simplified terms:
Level 0 — No automation. This is the car as traditionally understood, with the driver responsible for all of the vehicle’s operations and actions. Automated emergency braking is still considered Level 0.
Level 1 — Driver assistance. Under certain conditions the vehicle can control steering or speed, but not both at the same time. Corrective action and all other operational responsibility falls to the driver. Think adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance (not full lane-keeping ability).
Level 2 — Partial automation. The vehicle can steer, brake and accelerate in specific circumstances, though the driver remains responsible for maintaining complete situational awareness and reacting accordingly. Tesla’s Autopilot is an example.
Level 3 — Conditional automation. In addition to Level 2’s capabilities, the vehicle is capable of recognizing obstacles and predicting risks, such as approaching pedestrians. While a significant step toward self-driving, the driver remains necessary and must be ready to intervene or take over if the vehicle requires it.
Level 4 — High automation. The vehicle is able to interpret its environment and operate without a driver, but only under specific conditions, such as in defined areas or particular roadway types (limited access highway, for example). Depending on its intended use — for instance if restricted to a park or corporate compound, a Level 4 vehicle may not even require driver controls. Otherwise, Level 4 operation would still require a driver to get the vehicle to and from areas that it was capable of navigating in. Waymo, Google parent company Alphabet’s self-driving vehicle division, is currently testing Level 4 vehicles in a very limited area of Chandler, Ariz., a town just outside of Phoenix.
Level 5 — Full automation. This is a full-on, driverless vehicle. Able to make complete determinations about its environment, capable of being used in any of the locations, situations, or weather that a human driver would be able.
For now, the systems and software required to achieve high-level autonomy remain in development. With Ontario widely recognized as “Silicon Valley North” on the strength of our tech sector and post-secondary schools, the Ontario government has wisely made changes to the Highway Traffic Act (dubbed Regulation 306/15 — Pilot Project: Automated Vehicles) that facilitates the testing of autonomous vehicles here. Currently, the regulation requires a driver at all times in those vehicles, and vehicles and their creators must be vetted by the province to legally participate.
Further, a consortium between government, post-secondary education, and industry called AVIN (Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network) is utilizing the town of Stratford’s citywide Wi-Fi network to facilitate both autonomous and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) system testing, in addition to several other projects.
The massive amount of computing power, complex programming, and substantial number of different sensors required to facilitate autonomy is just one of the roadblocks facing autonomous vehicles. Legal and legislative hurdles may prove to be the determining factors in how soon you’ll be able to punch in your workplace’s address and catch up on the latest social media trends as you’re shuttled there by your car.
In the event of a collision, who’s at fault? In Level 3 and lower, the driver is required to be involved and thus is culpable. But what about Level 4 and 5, which may not even have a driver or driver controls? As the technology and vehicles evolve, so will the legal and regulatory framework. It will have to, just as it did during the transition from horses to horseless carriages.
So the autonomous vehicle has arrived in some capacity. It is completely possible right now to purchase a vehicle that will take over some of the more mundane parts of the driving task, like stop-and-go commuter traffic and long distance highway travel. Such abilities were the stuff of science fiction just twenty years ago, and they are a substantial step as we progress toward the eventual goal of full autonomy.