Benefits of Advanced Tech to Be Focus of House Hearing on Self-Driving Cars
Advanced technologies in self-driving vehicles will help prevent deaths and injuries of thousands of people, but more testing on public roads is needed, representatives from automotive suppliers of intelligent transportation systems and products plan to say at Tuesday's House Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing. They will argue that some state and federal laws hinder such testing. A witness for an insurance-funded auto safety group will say more evaluation of such technologies will be needed to prove their value.
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Lawmakers plan to examine safety implications of advanced driver assistance systems and crash avoidance technologies in autonomous vehicles, consumer education and awareness of such tech and privacy and security considerations. The subcommittee will look at SAE International's 0 through 5 levels of automation that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration adopted for its automated vehicles policy (see 1609200039 and 1609160038). The first three levels indicate a human driver monitors the driving environment, while levels 3, 4 and 5 are where an automated driving system monitors it.
“Without a common taxonomy and understanding of the different levels of automation, it will be considerably more difficult to make the necessary strides toward full automation," Kay Stepper, Bosch vice president-driver assistance and automated driving systems, will say, according to prepared remarks. Lack of a common language and standard descriptions, he says, hindered understanding and adoption of advanced driver assistance systems. A 2015 Boston Consulting Group study said such technologies could prevent nearly 10,000 deaths annually and save more than $250 billion in yearly societal costs in the U.S., says Stepper.
While suppliers conduct extensive lab, simulation and track testing of technology, Stepper says road testing and validation are important to provide automakers with necessary and cost-effective software. "Prohibitions and delays that impede on-road testing will slow this process at the supplier level and ... inhibit the overall progression of automated driving technology," he will testify. The subcommittee should consider extending the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act exemption to include suppliers with active R&D programs, he will say.
Jeff Klei, president of Continental Automotive Systems' North American division, which develops intelligent transportation technologies, plans to testify that his company is working toward a "Vision Zero" future where there are "zero traffic fatalities, injuries and ultimately zero accidents." Continental supplies crash avoidance technologies such as lane keep assist, back-up assist, automatic emergency braking and adaptive cruise control, for SAE automation levels 0 to 2. He says the company is putting big effort into "Human Machine Interface technology" so drivers can be aware of their surroundings and what their vehicle systems are doing, when to relinquish control of a car and when to re-engage.
Since 2011, Continental has been testing and developing technology such as automated parking and currently is integrating high resolution flash lidar that will expand a vehicle's detection capabilities, Kay says. These efforts would be enhanced through more "investment in infrastructure that promotes vehicle to X communication, a dedicated spectrum band that can be utilized by current and future safety systems, and harmonization of safety laws that allows for the full real world testing of these technologies," he says. Industry faces "considerable uncertainty" from state and federal requirements "that would require clarification from the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate all motor vehicles," he said: The government must also review standards allowing "for vehicles that may not be under the full control of a driver at all times.”
David Zuby, chief research officer with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, plans to testify that studies of certain technologies will show safety benefits from advances like electronic stability control and automatic braking, but inconsistent results from features like lane departure warning systems. Monitoring new technologies is needed to show if they deliver on promises, he says. Driver attitudes and acceptance toward tech varies, with some drivers failing to understand a system's limitations and becoming overly reliant on them, he will say. "New features should be designed in such a way as to make their limitations clear." Even if government now mandated that all new U.S. vehicles be fully automated, it will take at least another 25 years, he adds.
William Gouse, director of SAE International's federal program development, says that governments, industry and others have been using SAE levels of automation or the differing NHTSA classification or some or both, making it difficult to communicate with stakeholders and harmonize policy efforts. "Driver assistance and automated driving systems have the potential to provide substantial benefits to all customers of road transport," he will say.