V O L U M E 1 N O . 1 • S P R I N G 2 0 1 1 • A U V S I • 2 7 0 0 S o u t h Q u i n c y S t r e e t , S u i t e 4 0 0 , A r l i n g t o n , VA 2 2 2 0 6 , U S A
DOT’s connected vehicle work Europe’s Sartre road trains
Blind Driver Challenge Inside this issue:
Smart Transportation Mission Critical
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24 – 25 MAY 2011, RENAISSANCE ARLINGTON CAPITAL VIEW HOTEL, CRYSTAL CITY, VA, USA
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CONTENTS V O L U M E 1 N O . 1 • S P R I N G 2 0 1 1
AMAZING RACE A turn left is a step in the right direction for visually impaired drivers. The National Federation of the Blind sponsored a demonstration of technology that lets blind people drive.
Using this Ford Escape, roboticized with TORC Technology’s ByWire XGV system, and tactile interfaces developed by Virginia Tech, a blind man successfully drove a lap at the Daytona International Speedway.
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6 ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS
21 STATE OF THE ART
Who’s doing what, where
New products and technology
9 Q & A
31 FUTURE JOBS
Making the industry work
A leading expert talks transportation
On the Cover: A blind driver laps the track at Daytona International Speedway thanks to robotic technology. Photo courtesy the National Federation of the Blind.
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39 POP CULTURE CORNER The entertainment world’s view
41 TECHNOLOGY GAP What needs to be done
43 UNCANNY VALLEY Concerns about new technology
Page 23 44 TESTING, TESTING
Car Talk Imagine your car is talking about you. Don’t worry, it’s saying nice things. It’s trying to save you money, time and keep you from having an accident.
Peek at ongoing research
45 TIMELINE Tracing technology
47 END USERS The people moving the technology
Page 33 ROAD TRAINSPOTTING
Advertiser Index
Hell is driving with other people. A technology consortium in Europe is trying to change that with its Sartre program.
Insitu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Mission Critical is published four times a year as an official publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. Contents of the articles are the sole opinions of the authors and do not necessarily express the policies or opinion of the publisher, editor, AUVSI or any entity of the U.S. government. Materials may not be reproduced without written permission. All advertising will be subject to publisher’s approval and advertisers will agree to indemnify and relieve publisher of loss or claims resulting from advertising contents. Annual subscription and back issue/reprint requests may be addressed to AUVSI. Mission Critical is provided with AUVSI membership.
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TORC Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
President’s message Michael Toscano
Editorial Vice President of Publications and Communications, Editor Brett Davis davis@auvsi.org Managing Editor Danielle Lucey lucey@auvsi.org Associate Editor Stephanie Levy slevy@auvsi.org Contributing Writer Magnus Bennett
Advertising Senior Advertising and Marketing Manager Lisa Fick fick@auvsi.org +1 571 255 7779
A publication of
President and CEO Michael Toscano Executive Vice President Gretchen West AUVSI Headquarters 2700 South Quincy Street, Suite 400 Arlington, VA 22206 USA +1 703 845 9671 info@auvsi.org www.auvsi.org
W
elcome to the first issue of Mission Critical.
It looks a little different from the Unmanned Systems magazines you may be used to seeing. For one thing, it’s first and foremost an electronic publication. This means it can be animated on the web, with pages that turn like real pages and embedded links that can take you straight from the page to the web to get more information. Mission Critical will be published quarterly on the web and will be free to AUVSI members. Each issue will tackle a specific theme and cover it in depth with feature stories, graphics and news departments all aimed at one specific area relating to unmanned systems, robotics technologies and their use. This issue is devoted to intelligent transportation. The accident and death toll from automobiles around the world is staggering, as is the amount of fuel wasted sitting in traffic, not to mention the pollution that results. This is where unmanned systems technology can come into play. It can make cars safer, more efficient and even more fun to use. How do we get there? AUVSI and the National Defense Industrial Association are helping to facilitate the dual use and technology transfer of unmanned ground robotics technology between the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, NASA and the civil and commercial markets. This is called the Transportation Technology Transfer Initiative, or T3I, and you’ll read more about it in the pages to follow. It’s intended to
help lead to vehicles that can communicate with each other and with the environment around them to make transportation safer and more efficient. Part of this effort is aimed at building public acceptance of the technology. People are often concerned about new technologies until they see what can be accomplished with them. For instance, the first modern elevators were introduced in the 1800s. To help quell safety concerns, Elisha Otis demonstrated one in 1852 that had a braking system that would hold it up even if the cable broke. Electric elevators came into use later in the century and led to a new revolution, that of skyscrapers, buildings that wouldn’t be possible without them. Throughout most of these years, elevators had human operators. Over time, however, that need faded. Now, having a human operator in an elevator is unusual. They have proven their safety and reliability, and people accept them as a daily part of life. Cell phones are another example of how technology can take off and change our lives. The first commercial cell phone went on sale in the early 1980s and was the size of a brick. Now phones are tiny and everywhere: just in the last two decades, the number of mobile phone subscriptions jumped from a little over 12 million to more than 4.6 billion, connecting the world in a way never seen — or more accurately — heard of before. Future issues of Mission Critical will look at the areas of first responders, medical and home robotics, and exploration, including by oil and gas. We hope you will join us for the journey.
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Essential Components
‘Roads? … We don’t need roads’ DARPA isn’t the only one getting into the flying autonomous car game. Three Chinese researchers from the Department of Industrial Design at the School of Mechanical & Automotive Engineering at South China University of Technology came up with the YEE car concept, which also has a flying mode, as a way for future city dwellers to get around. “What we design is a car easy to operate, which precisely satisfies the highefficiency of the rapid pace of life; the intimate design and the use of new energy best embodies the contest theme: the harmonious coexistence of ‘people-carnature,’” says Lai Zexin, one of the designers. The design, which won the Gold Award of Best Creative Future at the First International Concept Car Design Contest held in Beijing, features propellers fixed into the back wheels, looking a lot like spokes, and would be solar charged. The concept depends on building pocket airports. These small areas, about the size of two football fields, would service these two- to four-seater flying SUVs. The designers have the lofty goal of flying by 2015.
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The YEE unmanned flying car concept, which aims to fly by 2015. Photo courtesy South China University of Technology.
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Third time’s the charm: The Volvo C30 Electric is equipped with three climate systems. One supplies the passengers with heating or cooling, one cools or heats the battery pack and one cools the electric motor and power electronics. Photo courtesy Volvo.
Keeping passengers, and batteries, warm in Sweden Volvo is using an innovative heating method to keep passengers in its new C30 Electric vehicle toasty warm without frying the car’s battery driving range. The C30 Electric has three climate systems: One heats or cools the passengers, one heats or cools the battery pack — key on an electric vehicle — and one cools the electric motor and vehicle electronics. The system for the passengers uses a bioethanol powered heater that keeps passengers comfortable in winter but doesn’t compromise driving range. It carries up to 14.5 liters of bio-ethanol. For shorter trips, the battery pack itself can be used to keep the car’s interior warm. “The driver can program and control the climate unit to suit the trip,” says Lennart Stegland, director of Volvo Cars’ Special Vehicles. “Ethanol is the default mode that is used when the battery capacity is needed for driving [to] extend mobility to its maximum. However, on shorter distances, electricity can be used to power the climate system.” Volvo has been subjecting the C30 Electric to rough winter conditions, making sure it runs smoothly in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, where that bio-ethanol heater would definitely come in handy.
The Pinnacle of combustion engine efficiency While much attention is being paid to hybrid or all-electric vehicles, Silicon Valley company Pinnacle Engines says internal combustion isn’t going away but can be made better. Pinnacle Engines plans to commercialize a “breakthrough, ultra-efficient engine” and market it worldwide, backed partly by venture capital — it has raised $13.5 million so far. The company plans to market the engine through a licensing agreement with an Asian vehicle original equipment manufacturer that it hasn’t yet named. The engine delivers 30 to 50 percent better fuel economy without driving up cost significantly, the company says. It uses the Cleeves Cycle, developed by company founder Monty Cleeves, which can alter the combustion depending on conditions. “This engine technology provides the fuel economy and CO2 emissions of a hybrid at a price that the whole world can afford,” Cleeves says. Look for the engines under a vehicle hood near you starting in early 2013.
High-tech valet comes to Chicago A new Chicago garage will use robotic technology to park cars, meaning valets are less likely to go tearing around in your Ferrari while you’re at the ballgame. The Green Park Eco Garage, a fully automated parking structure that can hold more than 100 vehicles, is slated to open in the city’s Bucktown district by the end of 2011. The garage will use a robotic system that doubles parking capacity compared to a traditional parking structure. The structure of the garage itself will also help the city’s efforts to go green: Developers are using recycled materials, energy-efficient lighting and a “green” rainwater-collecting roof to construct the building in an eco-friendly manner. But drivers will want to stay out of the garage during the city’s cold winters; since only cars will go into the garage, the developer is leaving the interior completely unheated. Watch a video of the system in action by scanning this barcode with your smartphone.
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Essential Components — continued from page 7
Vision ConnectedDrive is only a BMW concept car, debuted at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, but imagines out connected vehicle technology to include full Internet access, along with many driver assist functions. Photo courtesy BMW.
Rethink possible: BMWs next in slew of cars to go telecom BMW is taking hands free to a whole new level — the luxury automaker recently teamed up with telecommunications giant AT&T to create “an enhanced suite of safety and infotainment services” that will be available on future BMW models.
The Chevy Volt uses an OnStar app, available on Android, Blackberry and iPhone to monitor its charging status and give it a deadline for when you need the car’s charge to be full. The app also starts the car, locks or unlocks it and — in a move that will make pocket dialing infuriate the entire neighborhood — honk the horn.
This kind of connectivity is advanced but stands on the shoulders of a technology suite BMWs already offer — BMW Assist, which lets drivers access emergency and concierge call services, gives them traffic and weather information, news and fuel prices.
The European model of the Nissan Leaf uses wireless company Telenor Connexion that allows a smartphone or even a PC to access the car. Both systems help alleviate a large issue with electric cars: their slowto-respond A/C and heating systems. Now both can be started remotely.
Exactly what these “enhanced” services are remains a mystery, but other alwaysconnected cars to recently hit the market might hint at future BMW capabilities.
CEO of Telenor Connexion Per Simonsen says the company has agreements in place with Volvo, Scania and Daimler for similar systems.
Robot car connects gamers and drivers A popular piece of gaming technology is hitting the road. Researchers at the University of Bundeswehr Munich in Germany have used the Microsoft Kinect controller as a sensor in a robotic car. The 1:10 scale vehicle has the Kinect mounted at the front with a Microsoft notebook riding on the back. The vehicle uses a simplified version of the software used by the university’s MuCar-3 from the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Researchers now plan to install an accurate odometer in the vehicle. Watch a video of the robotic car by scanning this barcode with your smartphone.
Both the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, frontrunners of electric car technology, already offer remote access to the vehicles through smart phone apps. Photo courtesy Nissan.
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Q&A Dr. James Overholt is director of the Joint Center for Robotics at U.S. Army Research and Development Command (RDECOM)-Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC). He has worked with TARDEC for more that 25 years. He recently also completed an eight-month detail assignment as the systems and control program manager at the Army Research Office in Durham, N.C. Mission Critical caught up with him at the recent annual symposium sponsored by AUVSI’s Pathfinder Chapter in Huntsville, Ala.
Q:
You have talked about the need to obtain automotive levels of reliability in robotic systems. What is the best way to accomplish that?
A: Integration and testing, I should say safe testing, and really testing to failure. That’s a standard, traditional automotive approach, testing to failure, doing root cause analysis and going back and proving it and then re-implementing it and reintegrating it into the platform.
Q:
TARDEC has worked for years on robotic convoy technologies aimed at reducing the number of people needed to logistics resupply. What’s the status of that work, including on the Convoy Active Safety Technology (CAST) effort?
A: The CAST program has been in existence about four years. We’ve had some LOE, limited objective experiments, around the United States where we were specifically doing the data collection, and more from the standpoint of a couple of focus control groups. So we would have drivers who would be doing a task, and they were tasked like, we want to do long haul, so just driving in a repetitive, boring, loop for hours on end and then still being able to do some cognitive tasks, being able to report out, recognize objects on the side of the road, these kind of things, versus a group that had the capability to actually implement the leader-following capability into the vehicle and then checking the same thing. And we’ve seen significant, significant increases in the ability to keep the attention and the focus on the road and be able to take the gaze from road driving and actually be able to start recognizing things or objects of interest on the sides of
the road. So definitely ... in benign environments, where you do get some of the worst drowsy driver, highway hypnosistype maladies with the driver, this works. It certainly does work. Now we’re trying to consistently drive the costs per unit down, and we’ve got it down to something like $20,000-30,000, but even that’s too expensive. But we know we can do this, and we’ve done some night ops, we’ve done multiple trains, … we’re looking at Jeeps, we’re looking at M113s, so we’re looking at how we can put those together. It’s still almost exclusively a driver in the driver’s seat, although we do have the capability to operate one vehicle from another if we need to.
Q:
In the near term, do you foresee this technology aimed more at assisting drivers than getting them out of the vehicle completely?
Q:
When do you think this technology will be used in the field?
A:
I would imagine that we’re going to look at some serious testing of this probably in theater, whether it’s in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I imagine we’ll see some limited testing on this probably within the next two years if not sooner. I know there are some talks about it going out and being tested, again in a safe manner. Me personally, I would like to see it happen faster. I think the technology exists now, and it’s one of the programs that I’d like to see move forward where we start testing these again in some kind of safe manner for actually CONUS military, so we have OCONUS, the overseas, and CONUS, the continental United States.
Q:
Are you getting any resistance from people in the military to this technology?
A: I think so. There’s lots of reasons for A: I think they like it. We really have to that. As much as I understand the technology and am confident in the technology, you can’t have a 100 percent reliable system. But I still think the best way to really move this forward is incrementally, and incrementally in all aspects, not just technology but even the concept of operations. I think incrementally, I don’t want to do a wholesale change where I’m taking operators totally out of the vehicles. Let’s leave them in the vehicles, but now let’s provide this like a driver’s aid, a driver’s assist. Let’s get some confidence in the technology, some real trust in it, and let’s get people so used to it that we can declare success when they complain about a vehicle that doesn’t have it.
flesh it out because … it’s the proverbial, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.’ You look at all the things this technology could do, and you’ve just got to focus on one thing. So I don’t think anybody is necessarily resisting it, it’s just a matter of let’s get a truly focused plan, lay this out as strategy, so to speak, on how this particular convoying could be realized and moved out. What I’m talking about is potentially implementing these on military bases, so now are we not only talking about the soldier, but we’re talking about the military family and the military community. We’re looking at, can we expose a whole different segment of the population ... and in order to Mission Critical
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Q & A — continued from page 9 get that kind of permission we’re going to have to be able to show those people that make the decisions that, OK, these guys are going to run these safely, and you’re always kind of balancing that with you don’t want to have something so safe that you won’t be able to push the boundaries. So it really is an interesting balancing act between total safety and being able to push out on the abilities of intelligent technologies being integrated in.
Q:
You’re talking about ARIBO, which would test various robotic systems on military bases?
A:
It’s a notion of, let’s set up a living laboratory — again, safe — where we test intelligent vehicles on our roads, doing some real simple functions, putting hours and miles on these vehicles to understand when they work, when they don’t work. When they do work, test to failure, and when they don’t work, we bring that information back, we work with the integrators and providers ... and say, ‘OK, let’s make it better.’ And then get it right back out there and test it again. So the notion is, let’s do robots in our buildings, let’s do robots on our roads and let’s do robots on our perimeters for security. It makes a lot of sense to be able to do that. It’s just a matter of getting the program fired up, and I think there are a lot of long-term benefits that we could realize from doing that activity.
Q:
You’re working on convoy technology, and Europe and Japan are working on “platooning” efforts, where there is a lead, human-driven vehicle that can control a string of cars behind it. Do you think platooning is going to be the way that some of this technology first gets out onto the road?
A: I think so. … Is there real gain in the sort term and the long term? My gut feeling is there probably will be, but I think the numbers will hopefully prove that out. But I can see that happening here in a short period of time. 10
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Japan is really looking at it as a national effort. Cutting down on CO2 emission is really significant. There are lots of different ways of doing it but as it turns out, it comes down to if you can start reducing fuel consumption, you cut down on CO2 emissions. … If they [the Japanese] could integrate those technologies into these robotic convoys, they could realize as much as a 10 percent CO2 reduction. So it’s really remarkable technology that’s wide ranging — it’s safer, it’s potentially greener and it allows us to do a lot more functionality with the vehicles.
Q:
Where are we in terms of technology, say specifically regarding convoying or platooning?
A: We are pretty good at doing line of sight. From an autonomy standpoint, and there’s a lot of different people doing things, there’s a wide range, and it’s a difficult problem to look at ... but I can say with a good deal of confidence that we’re pretty good at operating in benign environments without a lot of people around on unstructured roadways. We can do that. We’re so good at it because also we’re far enough away from humans that we don’t run necessarily into the safety issues. So from an autonomy standpoint, there are certain realms and regions we’re really good at. We have to move out in other areas.
Q:
What connection do you have with the automotive industry in terms of swapping ideas or systems?
A: The Detroit auto industry has fallen on hard times the last few years. Our lab at TARDEC, in some ways, reaped the benefit of it. We hired some amazing folks from the automotive industry. One of the things that they brought to the table was a totally different perspective on military robotics. You’re so engaged in this area for so many years, it is great to get a refreshing look at it, so we have some great people who understand the tech from their end, and they’ve
been introducing me more and more, and introducing our group within the Army, to what’s going on in the auto industry and the tiered suppliers especially, in robust cheap componentry, in what they’re doing in terms of vehicle-vehicle architectures.
Q:
What will the world’s roads look like in the future, say 2050?
A: I don’t know if you saw ‘Minority Report,’ I don’t think we’ll be at that point where cars are going 150 miles per hour, but … there are some regulatory issues happening that in my opinion are seminal in the field. I think in 2012, at some point in 2012, all cars sold in the United States under 10,000 pounds gross vehicle weight will have an electronic stability package on them. And that to me is a seminal moment. It means the technology has matured to such a level that there is trust in it. The technology is there that now will take some of the so-tospeak driving functions out of the hands of the users, particularly in emergency situations. I could see us having [a] vehicle system, especially in populated areas, where you’ll have anti-collision. ... I think you’ll see a rebirth, in some sense, of the urban areas that are somewhat catalyzed by what’s going on in intelligent electronics, software, into vehicles. I think it will start bringing people more into the cities. Now from the military standpoint … certainly the amount of intelligence we’re going to see in these vehicles is going to increase. I think we will see some level of autonomy. I think you will see weaponry on vehicles. I think that is a coming thing that we as a military community have to grapple with. … I think you’re going to see in a very short time period the ability to have a few controllers, multiple robots. And I think that kind of swarming, teaming behavior between robotic entities is really an exciting and intriguing area that could be a significant force multiplier for the military in general.
Amazing race: blind, but now able to drive
By Danielle Lucey
Mark Riccobono becomes the first driver to loop the track at Daytona International Speedway. Photo courtesy NFB.
F
or the first time in history, blind driver is not an insult.”
Fresh from the driver’s seat, face still flush, Mark Riccobono’s first words to the press and attendees from the National Federation of the Blind brought laughs and a room full of applause. Riccobono had just turned what some consider a joke into reality, becoming the first blind driver to ever go around the racetrack at Daytona International Speedway. A precursor to the Rolex 24 — a 24-hour Grand-Am feat of driver endurance — the
Blind Driver Challenge was the brainchild of the NFB, whose members have spent more than a decade waiting for their goal to be achieved. You don’t need to see to appreciate racing at Daytona. Huge wafts of gasoline and burning rubber hang in the air each time a car blasts by grandstands, which hold the nearly 400 members of the NFB who turned out from all over the country for the event. And then there’s the noise: When the speed of the cars out for the Rolex 24 race hit that wall in the crowd’s ears, Doppler shifting from an impending roar to a passing whiz, the speed and pure mus-
cle of what’s in front of them is evident. For the NFB, the January event was about proving what they’ve always known: You don’t need to see to appreciate driving. What members did need was a little help and ingenuity from some friends in the robotics community to make that possible. The NFB issued a call to action to all American universities, and experts Virginia Tech and TORC Technologies answered. Using technology from the DARPA Urban Challenge, TORC Technologies took its ByWire XGV roboticized Ford Escape and coupled it with Virginia Mission Critical
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“...the obvious choice was TORC Technologies’ ByWire XGV solution.” - UC Berkeley
request a free consultation to see if the ByWire XGV is the right fit for your next robotics project
Base Platform
Problem Solved Base Vehicle Proven Hybrid Platform
Drive-by-Wire System Ethernet Interface Integrated Safety System Full Support & Documentation
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540.443.9262 torctech.com
Blind Driver Challenge — continued from page 11
We thought about our independence and what we could do to make the world better, and we built the idea that we would bring together inspiration and technology.
Riccobono lost almost all of his sight by age 13. Photo courtesy NFB.
Tech’s driver feedback inventions to turn robotic autonomy into personal autonomy, for the first time enabling blind people to drive.
Mark Like most blind people, Riccobono never imagined that he would be able to drive. Riccobono, 34, has been legally blind, meaning he only had 10 percent of normal vision, since he was 5 years old due to a congenital eye condition. He continued to lose his vision as he got older and was completely blind in his left eye by age 13. Though he is still partially sighted in his right eye, Riccobono says it’s only colors and shapes. “There was no prospect of being a driver; there was no thought of being a driver. I put the idea out of my head,” Riccobono says of the year he turned 16, usually the time when kids reach for the keys. He relies on carpools to get to work and uses public transportation to get his four-yearold son Austin to daycare every morning. The NFB got on Riccobono’s radar when he attended the University of Wisconsin Madison in the mid-1990s. “I didn’t know any real tips or tricks or
alternative techniques that blind people use,” says Riccobono. Unable to read Braille, Riccobono says he was “really struggling” when he came across NFB’s Madison affiliate. Interest piqued, he attended the national convention that year in Anaheim, Calif. “I found a whole network of people that were willing to challenge me to go beyond where I thought I could,” he says. Riccobono rose through the ranks, becoming the Wisconsin location’s president from 1998 to 2003 before accepting the position of executive director of research and training programs at NFB’s national headquarters in Baltimore, Md. NFB’s headquarters is fairly large, about 100 employees. Riccobono spends his days interacting with members and coworkers, and through the use of innovative technologies, his typical day is pretty standard. He uses a standard PC with a screen-access software, which reads what’s on his desktop out loud to him, that lets him interact with email, the Internet and Microsoft Word. He navigates a page using keyboard commands instead of a mouse. He keeps print documents on his desk, some in Braille and some that his assistant reads to him. Through a software that NFB helped
develop through a spinoff company, called K-NFB Reader Mobile, Riccobono’s cell phone is outfitted with a camera that can read what it sees to him. “Wherever I am, I can read using this technology,” he says. He can write hardcopy notes in Braille through a slate and stylus he carries with him. For the last decade there have been rumblings inside the NFB of increasing the autonomy of blind people in outside-ofthe-box ways. Putting a blind driver behind the wheel of a car was first pitched in 2001 at an NFB national conference by the organization’s president Marc Maurer. “Eleven years ago, we started talking about the blind driver,” said Maurer at the Daytona event to a crowd of NFB members, worked up to fever pitch by a man they clearly revere. “Building an automobile the blind could use, and they said we couldn’t do it. … When we started thinking about what blind people can’t do, how many of us have said the first thing is that we can’t drive? And we thought about our independence and what we could do to make the world better, and we built the idea that we would bring together inspiration and technology. “And today, to all of those to said it was just a stunt, and to all of those that said we couldn’t, and to all of those who said that it would never happen, we say you just watch us move.” It is under Maurer’s reign that the national Mission Critical
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Blind Driver Challenge — continued from page 13 headquarters broke ground on its new Jernigan Institute in 2004, a facility focused on advancing technology to increase the independence of the blind. “It was just part of the visionary set of things that was being talked about,” says Riccobono. The foundation set its timeline for driving, among its other goals, in the 25-year time range, he says. But the opening of the institute in 2004 marked a switch from talk to action. “That was the first time it was apparent that it was a little more serious than just a bold vision,” he says. In 2004, the NFB pursued universities to work on the challenge.
Getting set Michael Fleming has been working in the robotics industry since college. He got his
start as a student at Virginia Tech, where he got both his bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering. He went on to work as a research associate for the college. Fleming was inspired to start his own company after realizing that much of the university’s technology wasn’t being used in real-world applications. “I came to conclusion with some of my colleagues that we had all this great technology, but unfortunately the technology wasn’t going anywhere,” said Fleming in an interview with Virginia Tech. “When the graduate students would leave, they would leave a thesis, and that technology was not being ported to address critical needs that we see within society.” In 2006, with the help of Blacksburg, Va.’s VT KnowledgeWorks — an entrepreneurial incubation program for the Virginia
Tech community — Fleming secured a spot for TORC in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (CRC). The company is still located there five years later, having grown from four employees to nearly 30. TORC focuses on empowering other engineers by offering a suite of modular and easy-to-use products that can be used to more rapidly customize, integrate, and deploy safe and reliable robotic systems. Its products are now used by leading academic, commercial and government organizations to shorten the development process, lower costs and mitigate development risks. In the mid-2000s DARPA, the mad scientists of the Department of Defense’s array of agencies, began a series of high-profile unmanned ground vehicle competitions designed to build the bridge between re-
Virginia Tech students test out the roboticized Ford Escape before the Blind Driver Challenge. AUVSI photo. Mission Critical
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Blind Driver Challenge — continued from page 15 Wire modules, which allow for computer control and monitoring of the vehicle’s systems, the SafeStop wireless emergency stop system and PowerHub power management and distribution modules necessary to power the additional components, sensors, computers and technologies adding to the system. Light detection and ranging (lidar) scanners on the vehicle detect objects by sending out thousands of light pulses. The return light establishes distance, and those thousands of light points determine the profile of an object or negative space. The camera looks at those pixels from the lidar and populates them with color that helps classify the environment. The software then takes that image and tries to predict what those objects are doing in real time — it’s essentially the same way eyes and the brain work together. As for the additional hardware, a combination of scanning laser rangefinders and machine vision cameras were added to provide real-time sensory input.
The SpeedStrip interface sent vibrations up and down Riccobono’s back, letting him know how much to accelerate or decelerate. AUVSI photo.
search and real-life, working autonomous systems. In its last feat, the 2007 Urban Challenge, DARPA tasked innovators to come up with a way that a completely autonomous car could navigate a 60-mile urban area course. Stop lights, traffic, obstacles and all, the participants had a six-hour window to complete the course. Eighty-nine teams from around the globe competed to win the glory and prize money of the Urban Challenge. Undergrad and graduate students from Virginia Tech joined up with TORC to form Team VictorTango for the competition. Averaging just about one mile per hour slower than the top team, VictorTango placed third.
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The competition vehicle, a modified 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid, was the same platform used for the Blind Driver Challenge. TORC helped create all the software that allowed the Escape to autonomously navigate. “The [Blind Driver Challenge] vehicle has its roots in the DARPA Urban Challenge technology. The new challenge was adding a blind driver in the loop,” says Andrew Culhane, business development manager at TORC. “We were able to insert several TORC products on day one to get us 80 percent there — the remaining 20 percent was the tricky part, communicating with Virginia Tech’s nonvisual interfaces.” The ByWire XGV is a packaged vehicle conversion that includes TORC’s By-
All of this information gets fused together with data from a GPS unit, which works with TORC’s autonomous navigation software and finally passes the information back to the driver through the Virginia Tech Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory’s nonvisual interfaces. But it was not the XGV alone that powered Riccobono’s car. He had to actually maneuver the vehicle himself. Students at Virginia Tech masterminded the key pieces missing for this odd retrofit — turning an autonomous vehicle back into a manned car, but a manned car that still uses all the same software as a robotic vehicle to help make decisions. The students took to task, working under Virginia Tech professor Dennis Hong. They came up with two innovations, technologies that would give Riccobono feedback as he was driving the car. The technologies didn’t force him to perform a task, but told him what to do.
Through a senior design project, the students developed haptic sensors — devices that provide touch sensation — that would steer Riccobono in the right direction. Four of the eight seniors sent to the Daytona event worked on SpeedStrip, a pad the driver sits on that gives him information on his acceleration. The interface uses vibrations up and down the driver’s legs and back to let him feel how fast to drive. When that speed is neared, the vibration slows to a stop. The students started work on the device in 2006. The second interface that involved the other four seniors was DriveGrip, a pair of fingerless gloves that send vibrations down the driver’s fingers, which was designed in the last year. A soft right turn would send a vibration to Riccobono’s right pointer finger, and a harder right turn would go across more of his right-hand fingers. Like SpeedStrip, once the car is correctly oriented, the vibration stops. The gloves initially experienced wire fatigue when the students tested them, so they replaced them with wire cables, like the ones used on a computer.
…some actually do very, very well on their first try. It shows that Virginia Tech’s technology is intuitive… valuable to get a sense of the interfaces. And what testing on the simulator lacked in real-world feel, it made up for in safety, he continues. Multiple people tested on the simulators so the NFB could downselect to one driver for the Daytona race day. “We’ve had varying success,” says Riccobono. “Some people have very low percentage [accuracy] on their first run, being in the lane and on target, but some actually do very, very well on their first try.” It shows that Virginia Tech’s technology is intuitive, says Riccobono, but that training on any new device is also necessary. Locking up the deal to drive the real system at Daytona before the Rolex 24 Grand-Am
race was surprisingly easy, he says. “The whole team, Grand-Am, they run the race, but the Daytona international Speedway team [is] also a tremendous team of folks,” he says. “Not one person we met said, ‘Well, what do you mean you’re going to bring a blind person out here?’ They bought into the vision. And it just shows that they have imagination, because we certainly didn’t expect it to be as friendly, open, warm, when we said, ‘Hey, we want a blind person to drive on your track.’” Riccobono tested at Daytona only during the week of the race. “Daytona had a parking lot that they allowed us to use, and we did some testing
Go Virginia Tech and TORC tested the vehicle for two days in December at the Virginia International Raceway. The NFB tested on its own in Baltimore using simulators that the students sent headquarters. The simulators were about getting used to the nonvisual interfaces and how they communicate information to a blind driver, says Riccobono. The simulators were equipped with video game pedals, DriveGrip and SpeedStrip. “The limitation of the simulator is of course you do get valuable information from getting in the driver’s seat,” says Riccobono. “The noise of the engine, there are all these environmental cues you pick up on.” Though a simulator can’t give that kind if information, Riccobono says it was
Virginia Tech engineered DriveGrip to let the driver know which direction and how hard to turn. They’re looking to continue improve on interfaces in the coming year. AUVSI photo. Mission Critical
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Blind Driver Challenge — continued from page 17
…for the first time I could strap my family in and take them somewhere on my own direction. in a parking lot, mostly it was just to make sure, to keep the driver in shape and to test the system, test some of the things we were doing in the demo,” says Riccobono. The day before the Blind Driver Challenge, a number of NFB members showed up to the test parking lot, and Riccobono drove them around in what he calls the first blind driver taxi service. Most meaningful to Riccobono was being able to take his wife and two children on their very first family drive. “The first family road trip,” says Ricconbono, “and it was wonderful — a really moving experience personally to make that realization that for the first time I could strap my family in and take them somewhere on my own direction.” The day of the race was “a little nerve wracking,” he said. A few hours before the challenge, Riccobono joined the 400 members of the NFB and spoke with some of the group, which put him at ease, he says. “I was really at peace at that point. It was actually much more nerve-racking waiting to get out to the car.” Once he was on the track, “it was about the moment,” he says. “It was about showing really the achievement of the vision and the work that we had put in.” Driving at speeds up to 30 miles per hour, Riccobono drove around the track at Daytona, dodging cones and barrels and avoiding boxes being thrown out of a van in front of his car. “The truth is I was so focused it just seemed, well at the beginning it seemed very slow, much slower than I expected. Maybe I was driving a little slower because
TORC Technology’s ByWire XGV system turns any manned vehicle into a robotic platform. AUVSI photo.
I wanted to be right on, but once I hit that International Horse Shoe [the infield track section at Daytona], that was really the key moment for me.” Riccobono aced the course. Though the Blind Driver Challenge proved that robotic technology could enable drivers that need assistance, Riccobono says the NFB’s relationship with TORC is likely not over. “We think the guys at TORC are great, and they’ve done great work with us,” he says. And Virginia Tech isn’t done innovating new ways to make blind drivers a reality. The students are now working on AirPix, a third interface that outputs tactile information through small holes, much like how air blows through a table hockey board. That device may cut down on the numbing effect a driver would experience after a long time of using an interface
like DriveGrip — much like how motorcyclists’ hands grow numb after hours of vibration. The next step for the NFB is to build out the challenge, says Riccobono, getting more universities engaged and finding funding to continue academic research. “The ideal would be to have a series of challenge events where universities could enter their interfaces,” he says. Then they could have a series of blind drivers test the technology at once. “At some point, we’d love to have a race.” n Danielle Lucey is managing editor of Mission Critical.
To watch a video of the Blind Driver Challenge, scan this barcode with your smartphone.
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State of the Art
Arlington, Va.*
Innovations come from all over the world. Here is a graphical look at how different places around the globe stack up in terms of autonomous vehicle technology. Look for more in-depth stories on places followed by an asterisk.
AUVSI heads the Transportation Technology Transfer Initiative (T3I) to facilitate the transfer of intelligent vehicle technology between the Department of Defense and the civil transportation sector.
Hannover, Germany
Mountain View, Calif.* Google’s headquarters, where the company started testing its autonomous Priuses in October. (Mission Critical realizes the true plural is Prii, but does anyone actually say that?)
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The DARPA Urban Challenge and prior pair of Grand Challenges set the stage for autonomous vehicles one day becoming reality.
Parma, Italy Pikes Peak
Not only did Audi take its Autonomous TTS research car up this epic incline late last year, it went there quickly. The 12.42-mile course was completed in 27 minutes. Not bad compared to a manned 17-minute ascension. The research car was a joint effort between Volkswagen/Audi, Stanford University and software company Oracle.
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Daytona Beach, Fla.* The National Federation of the Blind, TORC Technologies and Virginia Tech demonstrated the first ever Blind Driver Challenge in early 2011.
Victorville, Calif., and the Mojave Desert
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Gotting KG demonstrated leader-follower technology using a Smart car and a tractor at the CeBIT Computer Fair in 2009 as part of its Gotting Konvoi concept, and is seeking partners for follow-on work for low-speed, off-road convoys in areas like mining pits.
Parma University’s VisLab took up its own Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge in 2010, logging in a 15,000-kilometer autonomous caravan trip tracing the ancient spice route from Italy to Shanghai, China. The first vehicle drove somewhat autonomously, with occasional human intervention, and a follower vehicle was close behind, tracking the leader with visual and GPS information.
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Gothenberg, Sweden* The site of Volvo’s Sartre autonomous road train concept testing.
Shanghai, China GM debuted its autonomous car concept, EN-V at last year’s World Expo 2010 Shanghai. The name is sort for Electric Networked-Vehicle, and the concept aims to transform urban transportation. The autonomous two-wheeled car for two could one day cut down on traffic and parking availability issues if its vehicle-to-vehicle communication method catches on.
Berlin, Germany Freie University Berlin’s AutoNomos project has sprouted a different kind of connected vehicle: one that latches into your brain. BrainDriver, though not road-ready yet, uses human-machine interfaces that could allow your electric-magnetic signals to send a car where you want it to go.
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Tokyo, Japan Company ZMP, headquartered in Toyko, will begin selling an autonomous vehicle this year for around US $84,000. Though it looks more like a golf cart than a BMW, ZMP is moving autonomous transportation into the hands of consumers faster than most thought possible.
Abu Dhabi, UAE The Tourist Club Area, like most other places in Abu Dhabi, is packed with cars and people, making transportation a chore. To relieve some of the street congestion outside one of its parking garages, Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties started using a robotic parking garage. A robotic platform places newly dropped off cars in a large stacking system and keeps track of all of the cars’ locations through cameras tracking license plate numbers.
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Adelaide, Australia MAGIC 2010 proved that robotic communication is a reality, with winning Team Michigan using 14 robots that collaborated with simple barcode scanning technology. Though not full-sized vehicles, this type of communication is paramount to many autonomous vehicle concepts.
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Car talk:
The science and politics behind vehicles that talk to each other and to the roadways
By Stephanie Levy
The basic rallying cry of the connected vehicle: “Here I am!” All images courtesy the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“Here I am!”
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his small declarative statement could soon become a rallying cry for a new generation of vehicles that help their driver avoid crashes, save gas and redefine transportation as we know it. It’s a start to a new reality in which vehicles rely on connected and cooperative systems to communicate with the road and each other, making driving safer. It’s the idea that seems counterintuitive at first, but has the data to back it up: By taking human error out of operating vehicles, more human lives can be saved each year, along
with gasoline and wear and tear. It cuts CO2 emissions as well. For now, “Here I am!” is the first step in establishing and deploying vehicles with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to infrastructure (V2I) technologies. “It’s sending out information about where a vehicle is and where it’s heading,” says Mike Schagrin, program manager at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office. “It’s not about who the passengers are or who the vehicle is, but where it is, so other equipped vehicles can pick it up and know a vehicle is there.”
That’s the V2V part; V2I has the vehicle communicating with infrastructure at critical and often dangerous places — intersections. For instance, a traffic light could tell an approaching vehicle when it’s going to turn red. Depending on how much time it has, the vehicle could either decide to continue on or alert its driver that it’s time to start slowing down. The Department of Transportation calls all this “connected vehicle” research, where the vehicles can talk to each other and to the infrastructure on which they move. “For the vehicle-to-vehicle testing, we have a lot of research that’s geared towards Mission Critical
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Car talk — continued from page 23
deployment that’s going on right now,” Schagrin says. “This is a multi-modal effort across the Department” that includes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Transit Administration and Federal Highway Administration. “We are also working very closely with the auto industry under partnership agreements,” he says. ”We have reached the stage of having some fairly mature technology and have demonstrated the capability in numerous venues.”
Wireless In V2V communication, a “here I am” automated signal emanates wirelessly from a vehicle, allowing it to interact with other vehicles on the road. Should a situation arise where there is a risk of a vehicle-to-vehicle collision, the vehicle would issue a warning to the driver so the driver can try to avoid the collision. “The kind of warning that we found was optimal was a combination of visual, audible and haptic, like a seatbelt tightening or seat vibrating,” Schagrin says. “That actually proved to be very effective in our limited trials.”
Safer chickens crossing the road
The U.S. DOT’s Mike Schagrin says that while the Department of Transportation is conducting some studies on this issue, it is not the main focus of their current research. However, the technology to reduce vehicle crashes could also be extended to vehiclepedestrian crashes. “One area that we are now investigating is in the area of transit. Pedestrian crashes don’t happen all that frequently, but when they do they’re very newsworthy,” Schagrin says. “We are putting some resources into how we recognize the pedestrian.” Mission Critical
“In the demonstration, Administrator [Peter] Appel and Deputy Assistant Secretary [Brodi] Fontenot endured several hair-raising potential crash scenarios,” says the official blog of Ray LaHood, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. “And from potential crash scenario to potential crash scenario, the new technology alerted the driver before it was too late and in ways our current vehicles simply cannot do.”
Previous research
Intelligent cars and trucks may be able to talk to each other and refrain from running into each other, but there is still the issue of vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents and collisions, as human beings remain low-tech and don’t yet come with “here I am” technology installed.
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In January, at Washington, D.C.’s Robert F. Kennedy Memorial stadium, DOT officials took part in a test ride in Ford-built vehicles equipped with a Wi-Fi like system.
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A 2001 study from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration found that automated pedestrian detectors at intersections increase pedestrian awareness while decreasing vehicle-to-pedestrian crashes. The systems can detect the presence of people and activate the “Walk” sign without the pedestrians having to push a button. The study took place in three cities — Los Angeles, Phoenix and Rochester, N.Y. — and defined vehicle-to-pedestrian “conflicts” as “any pedestrian-motorist interaction in which either the pedestrian or the motorist stops or slows down so that the other can proceed.” With automated pedestrian detection devices in place, the number of vehicle-to-pedestrian conflicts when a pedestrian began crossing the street fell by a whopping 89 percent; conflicts at the end of a pedestrian’s walk fell by 42 percent. These traffic systems also decreased the number of conflicts associated with right-turning vehicles by 40 percent and reduced all “other” types of conflicts by 76 percent.
Schagrin says the current V2V technologies can address up to 80 percent of all possible dangerous traffic scenarios. Drivers would start to see these benefits on the road when as few as 8-10 percent of vehicles use V2V technologies. Schagrin explains that the more vehicles that use these systems, the more drivers will reap the benefits.
tions to provide connectivity.” Through sensors, processors, software and communications technology in vehicles, infrastructure and control centers, DOT and its government and industry partners aim to create this connectivity with and between vehicles, infrastructure and wireless consumer devices.
“The cost itself isn’t terribly great, it’s a simple electronic device, but the issue with the vehicle-to-vehicle scenario is you have to have multiple vehicles equipped that are within range of each other to start getting the benefits,” Schagrin says. “When you get more and more penetration, you create greater benefits.”
The Department of Transportation supports connected vehicle research because of the solutions it offers to current traffic problems such as safety, mobility and environmental consequences. For instance, there are 6 million car crashes annually in the United States, leading to more than 30,000 deaths each year and a direct economic cost of $230 billion. Connected vehicle technologies are designed to increase drivers’ situational awareness and reduce or eliminate these devastating crashes.
The state of smart technologies In a 2009 presentation at the Intelligent Vehicle Technology Transfer (IVTT) Joint Military/Civilian Workshop on IntelliDrive (the former name of the DOT’s connected vehicle effort), Tim Schmidt, chief technology officer for the DOT, explained the system as “a suite of technologies and applications that use wireless communica-
“You don’t need to have every vehicle equipped in order for benefits to start being generated,” Schagrin says. “You can start saving lives right away. As the adoption of the technology becomes greater, more and more lives are going to be saved.”
“The present data suggest that automated pedestrian detectors can provide significant operational and safety benefits when installed in conjunction with conventional pedestrian push buttons at actuated traffic signals,” the report says. The study theorized that automated pedestrian detectors are successful because of the increase in likelihood that a pedestrian will receive the “Walk” signal. These signals ensure a minimum amount of time for pedestrians to cross the street.
Puffins and Pussycats Countries around the world have already put this safety information to some use. In 1993, the United Kingdom’s Puffin (Pedestrian User-Friendly Intelligent) crossings responded to pedestrian demand without creating unnecessary traffic delays. The United Kingdom later introduced similar technologies to Australia and Sweden. In the Netherlands the Pussycat (Pedestrian Urban Safety System and Comfort At Traffic Signals) system used a pressure-sensitive
In-vehicle devices will use V2V technology to alert drivers of dangerous situations.
The economic consequences of congestion on U.S. roadways is also staggering; between 4.2 billion lost work hours and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel, traffic congestion leads to a $78 billion annual drain on the economy. Therefore, one of the goals of connected vehicle research is to achieve transformational system performance of surface transportation networks.
mat to detect pedestrians waiting to cross the street and then infrared sensors across the intersection to detect crossing pedestrians. The study says it had mixed results. “Although pedestrians perceived Pussycats to be at least as safe as the old system, many pedestrians reported that they did not understand the functions of the mat,” the report said. “As may as half of all pedestrians refused to use the system.” Going forward from this study, researchers hope to find out if the benefits of automatic detection outweigh the cost. Researchers also aim to study a possible correlation between a reduction in inappropriate crossings (think jaywalking) and a reduction in vehicle-to-passenger conflicts or crashes. “More evaluations of this type are recommended to better understand the operational constraints of new technologies being applied for the first time in the pedestrian environment,” the report says. Looking at such applications is part of the Federal Highway Administration’s 15-year Pedestrian Safety Strategic Plan. Mission Critical
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VOLUNTEER, MENTOR, DONATE
Today, technology companies face a hiring crisis. The talent pool of students skilled in STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering and math) is shrinking as demand for these qualifications grow. The AUVSI Foundation was established to focus on the future of the unmanned systems industry and to develop hands-on educational programs to attract and equip students for a career in robotics. You can help the AUVSI Foundation in a variety of ways.
Learn how you can support our student autonomous vehicle competitions, mentor K-12 students, and fund programs that will bring hands-on robotic activities to schools and youth groups across the country. Visit www.auvsifoundation.org for more information or to make a donation online. *The AUVSI Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, charitable organization. All donations are tax-deductible.
AUVSI Foundation’s Student Competitions SAVE THE DATE 19th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) June 3-6, 2011 Oakland University Rochester, MI
4th International RoboBoat Competition June 9-12, 2011 Founders Inn & Spa Virginia Beach, VA
9th Annual Student Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS) Competition
June 15-19, 2011 Webster Field Patuxent River, MD
14th International RoboSub Competition
July 12-17, 2011 SSC Pacific TRANSDEC San Diego, CA
21st Annual International Aerial Robotics Competition
August 2011 Grand Forks, ND
Spectators are welcome at all student competitions. If you would like more information, please visit www.auvsifoundation.org. To sponsor, please contact Wendy Siminski at siminski@auvsifoundation.org.
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Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication showing types of V2I messages that can be delivered to a vehicle.
“It’s all part of the interoperability work where we have to make sure the data coming out of one vehicle or device is usable by another,” Schagrin says. Finally, cars and trucks currently make up 22 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, making them the second largest source for carbon dioxide pollution, behind factories. Connected vehicle research can address the issue of the nearly three billion gallons of wasted fuel in current car models by maintaining vehicles at maximum fuel efficiency and informing travelers to make more fuel-efficient and eco-friendly travel decisions. “I don’t think there are any major technology gaps right now for us to be able to do this,” Schagrin says.
Partners in transportation DOT has carried out a variety of projects related to connected vehicles, efforts that
have included public agency and industry partners. Michigan, no stranger to automotive transportation, has aimed at having a key role in the U.S. DOT’s overall connected vehicle efforts, and “playing a lead role in advancing smart technologies to connect vehicles and roadway” infrastructure is a central component of the state’s longrange (2005-2030) transportation plan. Aside from the nationwide benefits in safety, efficiency and pollution control, it’s good local business: Department research showed that an aggressive push in the research and development of V2V and V2I technologies could help create 16,000 jobs statewide. The state has “numerous” test facilities for the work according to a July 2010 white paper prepared by the Center for Automotive Research. Among these is a U.S. DOT-built Development Test Environment (DTE)
facility in southeast Michigan, the largest single deployment of dedicated shortrange communication (DSRC) systems in the country (DSRC is the bandwidth that allows V2V and V2I communications to work; the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has allocated 75 MHz of spectrum in the 5.9-GHz band for such vehicle communications). Michigan’s DOT has also tested 10 key connected vehicle technologies and applications. An overall traffic management center (TMC) sends congestion levels and other information to vehicles. Vehicles then send road updates back to the TMC. To communicate other vehicle-related circumstances to the driver, cars were equipped with emergency vehicle pre-emption, incident beacons, merge warning systems and an emergency vehicle warning. Emergency vehicle pre-emption allows the driver to press a button that makes the vehicle pass through a green light at an intersection. Mission Critical
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Car talk — continued from page 27 Schagrin says cars can use technologies like this to avoid “T-bone” crashes where one car driving straight slams directly into the side of another trying to cross; these particular crashes cause a lot of damage and are frequently fatal. Incident beacons allow a disabled vehicle to broadcast its distress signal to oncoming vehicles that can then update the TMC. An emergency vehicle warning emits a similar signal for emergency vehicles like fire trucks and ambulances. Other test bed applications dealt with V2I communications. Signal change countdown allows a driver to watch a countdown showing when the light will turn green. A parking availability application lets the driver access information about nearby parking spaces and purchase one of those spots. Also, as an alternative to the fuel use tax, which is based on calculations of the total number of miles a vehicle travels, these smart cars had a mileage-based user fee built in. Once these vehicles enter a highway, a real-time in-vehicle display
DOT plans a series of six driver clinics around the country starting this summer with all of these companies to give consumers an opportunity to experience these safety applications first hand. called congestion-based pricing shows fee and travel information. And for larger vehicles, a bridge height warning mechanism would give drivers of over-height vehicles an advance warning. Industry is also part of the work. The DOT works with a group called CAMP, or Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership, which includes Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai-Kia, Volkswagen and MercedesBenz.
Ford, which built the systems demonstrated in Washington in January, says it is “rapidly expanding its commitment to intelligent vehicles that wirelessly talk to each other, warning of potential dangers to enhance safety and flag impending traffic congestion to help improve the environment.” DOT plans a series of six driver clinics around the country starting this summer with all of these companies to give consumers an opportunity to experience these safety applications first hand. The U.S. DOT is also looking for additional partners, including possibly ones not traditionally affiliated with the automotive industry. In a new challenge, the Connected Vehicle Technology Challenge, DOT invites respondents to answer this question: When vehicles talk to each other, what should they say? The agency wants “short descriptions of novel, implementable ideas for products or approaches that utilize DSRC to offer
Wireless connectivity allows cars to be continuously aware of each other so if one car brakes suddenly cars several yards behind the vehicle get a safety warning before they get too close.
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Connected vehicles can serve warnings of upcoming intersections.
benefits to travelers or society at large.” The six best submissions will win their authors a trip to the 2011 Intelligent Transportation Systems World Congress in Orlando, Fla., this fall, where they will have a chance to pitch their ideas to transportation experts, business professionals — and potential investors.
Although DOT’s Schagrin
Challenges to overcome
a safe, secure and sensible
Although DOT’s Schagrin sees no big technological hurdles to V2V and V2I technology, getting widespread adoption and having a safe, secure and sensible operating environment on the roads is a different story.
operating environment on
The missing link in many of these innovations isn’t technology. Without legislative and societal support, the potential penetration levels Schagrin sees for V2V and V2I innovations may stall. “There are a lot of policy issues that need to be addressed,” Schagrin admits. “There’s privacy concerns, there’s liability concerns, there’s governance of the overall structure — who can provide an application, who
sees no big technological hurdles to V2V and V2I technology, getting widespread adoption and having
the roads is a different story. can operate on the system, what happens when you operate inappropriately on the system — that all falls into the governance structure.” Although bandwidth for the system isn’t a concern because of the DSRC spectrum allocation, privacy is. What if your car says something about you that you don’t like while it’s doing all that talking? The DOT is trying to alleviate cyber-security concerns by establishing a security
system where vehicles that send and receive information with other vehicles or devices have to first establish trust with each other through a public key infrastructure (PKI) security system. Schagrin admits this presents a catch-22 situation for engineers and regulators alike. “The greater the privacy, the less secure the system might be,” Schagrin says. “Or take it the other way; the more security you want in the system, the less privacy you might have.” However, DOT says that any system for connected vehicles would be anonymous and would not allow for individual tracking. Schagrin would not comment on the current state of funding for V2V or V2I programs as it appears in the current U.S. federal budget. Congress was still wrestling with continuing resolutions to keep the government functioning as spring arrived, but still hasn’t finished a longerterm agreement on a federal budget for fiscal year 2011. Mission Critical
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Car talk — continued from page 29
V2V and V2I communication isn’t just for cars; trucks, buses and trains can get in on the conversation too.
Decision point Ultimately, Schagrin says the Department of Transportation has set a decision point of 2013 to determine the next steps for V2V technology for light vehicles (a decision point for heavy trucks comes a year later, in 2014). To prepare for this decision, DOT will be deploying approximately 3000 vehicles in a real world model deployment as part of their research and development. It expects this model deployment to be structured in such a way as to create a highly concentrated environment of vehicles talking with each other. This pilot program allows officials to get real-world data on vehicle safety and user acceptance. Researchers will gather user acceptance data by having real drivers, not other researchers, driving the smart vehicles on real roads over a several month time period. DOT will also set up driver clinics later this year to allow additional drivers to experience these safety applications in a controlled environment to see how they work. Safety is still key: DOT says that for both the model deployment and driver clinics, its number one priority is driver safety. It plans to have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure it does not jeopardize the safety of individuals participating in the research. 30
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“The decision point could either be that we find out we need to do more research, or we could decide to do NCAP, which is the New Car Assessment Program [also known as Stars on Cars], and that’s a voluntary program in which we would provide consumer information and car companies would voluntarily decide whether they want to include safety applications in technology or not,” Schagrin says. There could also be a regulation to mandate the technology and applications. While 2013 may seem right around the corner, for Schagrin this deadline is a long time coming. When the Department of Transportation first started researching intelligent transportation technologies, he says the technology was very different from its current state and despite all the research, there was not much support for an initiative that seemed “too far ahead of its time.” Schagrin says he is confident in
the positive feedback he has received on the new program thus far, and how it’s going to play in to this fast-approaching milestone. “Over the past couple of years when the economy has taken a downturn and the car companies have been in trouble financially — and this is a statement about how committed everybody is — we saw no drop-off in support for the safety research at all,” Schagrin says. “There was a full commitment throughout everything, so that’s reassuring and we’re all in this together. It’s not something the government can do by itself, it’s not something that the car companies can do by themselves; it’s a collaboration. And we have maintained that collaborative environment over several years.” n Stephanie Levy is the associate editor of Mission Critical.
For More Information:
http://connectedvehicle.challenge.gov/ http://www.thefordstory.com/ http://www.its.dot.gov/ http://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,1607,7-151-9621_11041_38217---,00.html
Future Jobs
What does intelligent transportation mean for the workforce of the future?
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mplementing intelligent transportation makes lots of financial sense, particularly in fast-growing cities around the world, according to recent studies. What does it mean for jobs, and what kind of jobs could it create? The time spent wasted in traffic around the world is staggering, and it’s not going to ease; a United Nations report says that by 2050, about 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. Those people will want some way to move around, whether that be cars, trucks, buses, rail, bicycles, Segways or something else. In the short term, much of the effort directed at creating intelligent vehicle systems is aimed at making the current infrastructure work more efficiently. For instance, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) tracks the benefit of intelligent systems in a monthly report posted on its website. One recent report cited the effect of an “intelligent speed control” system in Los Angeles that provided drivers with realtime speed recommendations in congested areas based on travel time data and weather information. Rather than rushing into a traffic jam, drivers could instead travel at a more steady pace that would reduce congestion all around. In the end, the study found that such a system cut fuel consumption by 10 to 20 percent and lowered carbon dioxide emissions without drastically increasing time spent on the freeway. As cities around the world implement smart transportation systems, setting up
systems such as this is one way that jobs can be generated. Taking a tack from NASA in the days of the space race, the U.S. DOT has a program aimed at keeping kids interested in science and math as a way of developing a future career in transportation. The Garrett A. Morgan program, named after the inventor of a safer traffic signal, touts the high-tech jobs that intelligent transportation systems can provide, and urges children to become aerospace engineers, environmentalists, systems engineers, computer scientists and communications engineers. “We want you to help us build the transportation systems of the future, and we want to help you develop the technology skills needed for tomorrow’s transportation jobs,” the DOT’s ITS website says.
Disruptive tech As intelligent transportation technology becomes more “disruptive,” more changes to existing jobs are likely. Just as the rise of the automobile itself disrupted horse-base transportation — including the oft-mentioned demise of the buggywhip industry — intelligent transportation promises much the same thing to the existing transportation sector. “In general, whenever there’s a major new technology which you call disruptive or transformational technology, and old
companies and industries get driven out of the market or reduced in their significance relative to the new technology over time, there’s always going to be some loss of jobs in the old sector,” says Bob Finkelstein, president of Robotic Technology Inc. (for more on him, see the End Users on Page 47). Specifically, Finkelstein sees job loss in industries such as trucking, cab driving and delivery services. For example, the American Trucking Associations says it has more than 37,000 members in the United States. Finkelstein says future smart cars would eliminate many of those jobs because they would be able to provide the same services with greater efficiency and less cost. “It’s easy to see there’s going to be a loss of jobs in the area where people drive for a living,” Finkelstein says. “You won’t have drivers but you’ll have other sorts of personnel in those businesses and industries.” Military officials often say that unmanned systems are anything but unmanned — each system requires tens or hundreds of support personnel to review data, work the sensors, etc. That’s much the same in the transportation world. The U.S. DOT estimates that intelligent transportation systems in the United States will create 600,000 new jobs over the next two decades. Mission Critical
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Future Jobs — continued from page 31
Smart systems need smart people One of the immediate needs of the intelligent transportation industry is filling the technology gap. Finkelstein calls these potential positions “new jobs in the new technology sector.” “The new sectors of employment would include jobs involved with creating intelligent software and associated hardware for these systems,” Finkelstein said. “That is, advance sensors and sensor processing and machine intelligence-related software and communications, systems for communication between vehicles, between the infrastructure in vehicles, etc.” Major automotive industries, university
labs and other outside businesses like Google have already entered the research and development phase with autonomous vehicles. “The main need for furthering the technology is in the software arena,” Finkelstein says. “The sensors can be improved. I think the available sensor technology is sufficient if appropriate software were available to achieve the hard levels of perception and situational awareness, to be at least as good as that of human drivers or better.” Beyond the market for software engineers, there will be business technology enterprises that help cater smart cars to
the consumer market. For example, Finkelstein believes that smart cars will make it unnecessary for most people to own their own vehicles. As a result, services that allow drivers to summon driverless or driver-optional cars via cell phone or a predetermined schedule may evolve, and they will need employees to staff these new companies. “The enterprises dealing with maintenance and retrofitting of these vehicles will involve all sorts of jobs,” Finkelstein says. “[Also,] transporting jobs across the country with these sorts of vehicles with convoying, there will be different kinds of trucking and transport.” n
Turn and face the strain Finkelstein sees many changes on the horizon for the automotive industry. Here are some ways future jobs may stack up, he says. n New entrants into the automotive industry
As vehicles get smaller and more sophisticated, more companies might build them. n New entrants into transportation-related services
Changes to vehicles might bring changes to infrastructure, creating new opportunities in industries like construction. n New major original equipment manufacturers
Components such as sensors and software may become as critical as engines and tires.
New business models There are likely to be some new tweaks to existing business models. In their book, “Reinventing the Automobile,” published by MIT, authors William J. Mitchell, Christopher E. Borroni-Bird and Lawrence D. Burns note that networked cars can use advanced Internet searches to help plan outings such as trips to a grocery store.
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“If you want to go to a supermarket, your vehicle’s navigation system should show you the supermarkets that are accessible within a specified time or at a specified cost, and will be open when you get there. Furthermore, you can sometimes avoid a trip if opening times, availability of stock, best local prices and so on are known ahead of time.” This, of course, opens the possibility of advertisements that would appear alongside these results. “The combination of sophisticated road and parking space markets with urban search and location-based advertising opens up the possibility of some interesting new business models for personal urban mobility,” they write. “Currently, the responsibility for identifying destinations and paying for travel to them rests primarily with drivers. In the future, advertisers might take over much more of that responsibility.” In the end, Finkelstein says it’s difficult to decisively say where all these new jobs might originate or how many may arise in this new industry. ”It’s hard to determine the ultimate impacts of the new technology on the industry and on society in general,” Finkelstein says.
Road trainspotting Hell is driving with other people. A technology consortium in Europe is trying to change that with its SARTRE program.
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riving in often-clogged European traffic may get easier in the near future, as drivers may be able to relax and let someone else take the wheel for a while without ever getting off the road. European researchers say they have successfully tested technology that they hope will pave the way for vehicles that can drive themselves in “road trains” on European freeways within a decade. The European Union-financed Safe Road Trains for the Environment (Sartre) project carried out the first successful demonstration of its autonomous vehicle “platooning” technology in wintry conditions at the Volvo proving ground, close to Gothenburg, Sweden, in December. During the demonstration, a lead truck guided a Volvo S60 around the country
road test track without any input from the car’s driver. The lead vehicle wirelessly controlled the Volvo’s speed, distance and steering. This was the first time the Sartre development teams had tested their systems together in the real world — previous testing had been done on simulators.
Getting Sartre on the road Sartre, whose goal is in part to help tackle Europe’s heavily congested road networks, is being funded by the European Commission, which is contributing 3.8 million euros (US $5.2 million) toward the total budget of 6.4 million euros (US $8.8 million). The project is being led by British engineering consultants Ricardo UK in collaboration with Idiada and Robotiker-Tecnalia of
By Magnus Bennett
Reading and drinking coffee while driving? Not a problem as long as some other vehicle is driving. Spain, Institut for Kraftfahrwesen Aachen (IKA) of Germany, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Volvo Car Corporation and Volvo Technology of Sweden. In the first demonstration since the start of the three-year project in 2009, the lead vehicle — a Volvo automated safety
Sartre’s first road train: A Volvo follows a lead truck outside Göteborg, Sweden, December 2010. All images courtesy Volvo Car Corp.
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Sartre — continued from page 33
The EU project Sartre is testing a technology for vehicles that can drive themselves in long road trains on motorways. This technology has the potential to improve traffic flow and journey times, offer greater comfort to drivers, reduce accidents, and improve fuel consumption and hence lower CO2 emissions.
truck — was fitted with a mouthful of acronyms in the form of a range of safety systems including ESP (Electronic Stability Program), LKS (Lane Keeping Support), DAS (Driver Alert Support), LCS (Lane Change Support) and ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control). Tom Robinson, project director of intelligent transport systems for Ricardo, describes the first demonstrations as a “major milestone” for the European research program, adding that Sartre is “making tangible progress towards the realization 34
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of safe and effective road train technology.” He tells Mission Critical that the demonstration focused on testing the control and sensor system, while also assessing the first iteration of the HMI (human-machine interface). “Issues such as longitudinal and lateral string stability have been assessed with the two vehicles,” he says. “Vehicles were driven up to 40 kilometers per hour [26.8 miles per hour] with a gap size of
10 meters [10.9 yards]. “Both a ‘join’ and ‘leave’ maneuver were also tested,” he says. “The testing was successful, and we gathered sufficient information to enable further development to continue.” Erik Coelingh, engineering specialist at Volvo Cars, said his company is pleased to see the various systems work so well together the first time. “After all, the systems come from seven Sartre member companies in four coun-
Sartre has set itself a wide set of goals for its autonomous driving project — to improve traffic flows and journey times, offer greater comfort to drivers, reduce accidents and lower CO2 emissions by improving fuel consumption. tries,” he says. “The winter weather provided some extra testing of cameras and communication equipment.”
Securing safety systems Some of the safety systems used in the demonstration were developed by various E.U.-financed research projects, such as Have-it and Intersafe-2. Project leaders at Have-it (Highly automated vehicles for intelligent transport) will be demonstrating their “radically new approach” to highly automated driving in Sweden in June. The 27.7 million euro (US $37.85 million) project, which is being coordinated by Siemens VDO Automotive of Germany in cooperation with academics and companies from seven European countries, has developed a step-by-step-approach to transferring driving tasks back from an automated system to the driver instead of just switching off an ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) in the event of an impending critical situation. Meanwhile, the 6.5 million euro (US $8.9 million) Intersafe-2 project, coordinated by Ibeo Automobile Sensor of Germany, has been developing a Cooperative Intersection Safety System (CISS), which researchers say will be able to significantly
Reading and drinking coffee while driving? Not a problem as long as some other vehicle is driving. In a road train the cars are driving autonomously behind the truck. This technology could free time for the driver, improve safety and decrease the environmental load.
reduce injury and fatal accidents at intersections by using advanced onboard sensors for object recognition and relative localization.
Hop on the train Sartre has set itself a wide set of goals for its autonomous driving project — to improve traffic flows and journey times, offer greater comfort to drivers, reduce accidents and lower CO2 emissions by improving fuel consumption. Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Vehicles are outfitted with a navigation system and a transmitter/receiver unit. Drivers who want to join up with a road train state their destination and the navigation system directs them to the nearest road train. The car joins the rear of the train and the lead vehicle takes control of the car, allowing the car’s driver to read, sleep, relax, do anything but worry about driving. The lead vehicle would be able to take
control over the acceleration, braking and steering of between six and eight vehicles behind it via a platoon sensor envelope that collates information. That information would be presented to the lead vehicle so it can understand what is happening around all the vehicles. Project leaders say the lead vehicle, which could be a taxi, a bus or a truck, would be driven by an experienced driver who is thoroughly familiar with the route. When it’s time to peel off from the road train, the car’s driver regains control and continues on his or her way by exiting off to the side. The other vehicles in the road train would close the gap and continue on their way until the convoy splits up. The project is mainly aimed at commuters facing long journeys, allowing them to read a newspaper, use a laptop or even watch TV when driving to or from work. As the autonomous system is being built into the platooning vehicles themselves, Mission Critical
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Sartre — continued from page 35
researchers say there will be no need to extend the infrastructure along existing road networks. That, they argue, will prove a cheaper option, because a system that involved wiring up road networks with sensors to help control the road trains would be prohibitively expensive. The Volvo Truck Corp. tells Mission Critical that safety is “a key issue. “With the lead vehicle driven by a professional driver using a truck equipped with cutting-edge safety features to support the driver, we secure high safety for the entire road train,” Volvo spokeswoman Jenny Bjorsne says. “In addition — in the future vision of road trains — the professional driver of a lead vehicle will most likely have additional training to ensure they 36
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understand particular issues with road trains.”
illegal, such as texting while driving, will someday be encouraged.
But the project partners accept there are still significant safety and legislative hurdles to overcome — as well as public perception issues — as they move forward.
“A serious consideration of the project is legislation and how this may affect the uptake of Sartre platooning,” he says. “The program has an aim to allow following vehicle drivers to undertake other activities such as operate a phone or laptop, and these at present would be considered illegal. The program is investigating the legislative issues, will consider these in the design and will also be discussing these with relevant government stakeholders.”
Speaking ahead of the Swedish demonstration, Robinson tells Mission Critical, “A particular example of acceptability is the inter-vehicle gap size, which the initial results indicate is larger than we would want to implement. As people become familiar and more confident with the system, then they will accept a smaller gap size.” In other words, no tailgating until people get used to it. Robinson also points out that legal issues will have to be taken into account. If platooning takes hold, things that are now
A world with roadtrains In the meantime, Sartre’s partners are stressing the benefits of the platooning concept, which they say could be “significant.”
As a car in the road train reaches the junction at which it needs to leave the highway, its driver retakes control and moves away from the convoy, which then closes the space vacated. Everyone else can continue eating, drinking, reading or talking on the phone.
They estimate that, compared with cars being driven individually, the fuel consumption saving for high-speed operation of road trains will be in the region of 20 percent, depending on vehicle spacing and geometry. Their argument is that as vehicles in a train would be close to each other, they would be able to exploit the resultant lower air drag. They also argue that accidents caused by driver action and driver fatigue will be reduced, and better use of road capacity means that journey times can be reduced. On its website, the Sartre project further claims that for users of the technology, “the practical attractions of a smoother, more predictable and lower-cost journey which offers the opportunity of additional free time will be considerable.”
But the question remains what will happen after the end of this three-year project, which is due to wind up in 2012. Ricardo has pointed out that the concept is unlikely to lead to a sudden switch to autonomous driving on Europe’s freeways.
road transport expert professor Colin Bamford of Huddersfield University in England tells Mission Critical. “The sheer volume of traffic on all U.K. motorways and elsewhere, is that I really cannot see it working.
“Technically Sartre platooning could be ready for rollout in 10 years,” Robinson says. “Given the potential legislative issues, it is more likely that incremental or interim solutions — using knowledge and technology from Sartre — will be offered, such as platooning in dedicated lanes.”
“A major consideration in the U.K. is that the mass transit alternatives are not attractive for most road users,” he continued. “There could be more potential for freight services, where say one lane on a motorway is designated for freight only vehicles. Even then I remain very dubious.”
But some observers in the United Kingdom remain to be convinced by the practicality of the project. “To be quite honest, I am very skeptical as to whether it is of practical relevance,”
Others said they will watch how the Sartre project unfolds before reaching a conclusion. Truck haulage companies say the concept is not entirely new, but they have no objection to the concept in principle. Mission Critical
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The project leaders say Sartre-developed technology could “most likely” go into production in a few years’ time. But … it could take substantially longer to win public acceptance… “Mercedes-Benz proposed something similar more than a decade ago for 40-ton trucks and, as I recall, the regulatory obstacles were considered to be quite as challenging as the technical issues,” says Jack Semple, director of policy for the U.K.’s Road Haulage Association (RHA). “At that stage, there was no European Commission backing that I am aware of. This latest project is led by companies, including Volvo and Ricardo, which also have global reach and reputation. “The RHA would be interested to learn more in due course,” he continues. “There may be a range of traffic management options, and the fuel savings proposed are clearly attractive. In 10 years’ time, they may be all the more so.” He adds, “Road safety would be one of several concerns, but I can think of little reason, in principle, for the RHA to oppose such technology, assuming it can be shown to be reliable and introduced in a way that haulers had access to it regardless of company/fleet size.” Road safety campaigners say they would like to see a full evaluation of the safety aspects of the system. Ellen Booth, campaigns officer for U.K. road safety charity Brake, says, “As with all new road technology, safety must be absolutely paramount. This technology is in its infancy, so we have yet to see what the potential pitfalls could be.” Brake would 38
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Erik Coelingh, Volvo Cars, project leader for Sartre road train project.
like to see a full-scale evaluation of the safety impact of such a system in comparable conditions to those it would face on the road.
The demonstrations will also feature more complex platoon strategies, including handling a platoon that is approaching a slower vehicle.
“Although human factors are undoubtedly important in crashes, there may be other risks associated with joining or exiting a platoon, with technology failure or with the magnification of any risks associated with the driver heading up the platoon,” she adds.
“These tests are likely to be carried out to different degrees at test tracks in Gothenburg and the U.K.,” says Volvo’s Jenny Bjorsne. “In 2012 we will be starting assessment, where we are seeking to assess the actual benefits to platoon users. These will be carried out by [private test circuit owners] Idiada on a test track in Spain and hopefully will include a demonstration of the system operating on a public highway in Spain.
The project leaders say Sartre-developed technology could “most likely” go into production in a few years’ time. But, as they readily accept, it could take substantially longer to win public acceptance and secure legislation, because 25 European governments would be required to pass similar laws for the concept to become a reality. In the meantime, the Sartre road train rolls on. The project leaders plan further tests throughout 2011, introducing new challenges such as faster speeds, shorter intervehicle distances and more vehicles.
“The project will continue evaluation of technologies and identify problems to solve,” she says. “In fact, a big part of the project is to find and identify disadvantages. One of them might be that very long road trains can block exits to slipways for other vehicles, and we recognize this and are seeking to identify an appropriate length of platoon.” n Magnus Bennett is a journalist currently working with the BBC in the United Kingdom.
Pop Culture Corner Engineers aren’t always behind new technologies we see. Hollywood generates plenty of new gadgets and ideas on its own, some of which eventually work their way into the hands of the public. While not all good ideas, here are some of the concepts from the big and small screen of how life will look with intelligent vehicles.
KITT, keep your scanners peeled! Of all Hollywood’s driverless car concepts, none was more tricked out than KITT, the car with a mind of its own on the 1980s series “Knight Rider,” starring David Hasselhoff, who tired of having to wear so many clothes and went on to star in “Baywatch.” In real life a $100,000 souped-up Pontiac TransAm, KITT — or Knight Industries Two Thousand — could interact with humans with technologies like a voice synthesizer to speak, an anamorphic equalizer that used fiber optics to let it see and even sensors that allowed the car to smell its environment. KITT was controlled by an artificial intelligence system, Alpha Circuit, that acted as a communication link between the car’s CPU and controls. Microscanners let KITT detect what was around it — essentially an all-directions lidar. The thing was even equipped with flame throwers. One technology on KITT that likely will never make it to the streets — its onboard fax machine. NBC tried again with “Knight Rider” in 2008, with KITT voiced by Val Kilmer, but the TV show was short-lived.
‘Minority Report’ “Minority Report’s” vision of 2054 Washington, D.C., is truly a thing of science fiction: no traffic. No accidents either — in the future, according to this Steven Spielberg film based on a Philip K. Dick short story, cars, called Meg-Levs, will run on a magnetic three-axis grid. Suspended in place by magnets, the cars are able to drive in urban areas at speeds up to 100 mph on roads and up and down the sides of buildings. The cars and pods featured in the film were the work of Harald Belker, creator of the 1997 version of the Batmobile, who was tasked by Spielberg to make a series of futuristic Lexus car and personal transit pod concepts.
“A lot of thought went into the Mag-Lev vehicle, and we were designing the whole system parallel with it,” Belker said in an interview with Car Design News. “The goal was to design an individual mass-transportation system using a custom capsule that would transport you anywhere within the system.” Belker isn’t only a movie car concept maker. He previously worked at MercedesBenz on its Smart car project, now in production.
The only non-German car the country is jealous of — David Hasselhoff with KITT from a “Knight Rider” screenshot.
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Pop Culture Corner — continued from page 39
Herbie, fully human Both a TV show and a seemingly endless series of movies from Disney, Herbie is still so popular that there are meet-up groups for Volkswagen Beetle owners that have designed their car to look just like the original. The anthropomorphic vehicle has been seen onscreen since the late 1960s with everyone from Buddy Hackett to Lindsay Lohan. Originally portrayed in “Herbie the Love Bug,” Herbie’s owner — a racecar driver with a failing career — realizes the car has a mind of its own and a need for speed. While not as technologically thoughtout as KITT, Herbie was distinct for it’s human characteristics — producers say they picked the Beetle because it was the only car they wanted to pet. The highest grossing film of 1969, Herbie’s lifelike quality earned it the first ever car credit in =a film. The latest incarnation, “Herbie: Fully Loaded” grossed more than $144 million.
Cars with minds of their own? The horror! Not every depiction of autonomous vehicles is in an awesome futuristic world. Many portrayals are of creepy, spooky or outright horrifying automobiles that torment their owners. Stephen King has actually written two novels about terror-reigning cars. In his 1983 novel “Christine,” a 1958 Plymouth Fury with a history of being at the scene of horrific crimes and incidents comes under a new owner, who then starts experiencing his own slew of terrors. Christine eventually drives herself around town, committing murders and repairing herself so her owner doesn’t suspect a thing. In 2002, King revisited the topic in “From a Buick 8,” about a mysterious car that can heal itself and possibly serves as
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an entrance between worlds. In an episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “You Drive,” a man is involved in a hit-and-run accident. After fleeing the scene, he learns the boy has died. After the incident, his vehicle takes on a mind of its own, driving him to the location of the accident when he doesn’t intend to head there. On a rainy night, the car runs down the man, who has taken to walking everywhere. Before it hits him, it slows and opens the door. The man, riddled with guilt, drives to the police station and confesses to the murder. In 1977 film “The Car,” James Brolin possesses a car with supernatural powers.
The customized 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III, designed by original Batmobiler George Baris,is just flat-out murderous, hunting down people in a desert town. The film has an 18 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The 1974 TV movie “Killdozer” featured a bulldozer that develops a mind of its own. Like King’s nightmares on wheels, Killdozer isn’t autonomous due to technology. In this case, the vehicle is possessed by an alien entity. The movie was based on a story by legendary writer Theodore Sturgeon, who probably left it off his resume. n
Technology Gap
Back to the horse?
Not as easy as it sounds
Back to the future? Horses were the original intelligent transportation systems. Future cars and trucks may be more like them.
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n a sense, a move to intelligent transportation is a return to the horse.
“The Westerns that showed the cowboy calling to his horse to pick him up, and then falling onto it and being taken where he needed to go even while asleep in the saddle, present a powerful idea that was lost when the automobile took over,” authors William J. Mitchell, Christopher E. Borroni-Bird and Lawrence D. Burns write in their 2010 book, “Reinventing the Automobile.” Much of the work being done to realize an intelligent transportation system is aimed at regaining that capability — we’d have vehicles we can talk to and that can communicate with each other and which can perform some tasks autonomously. And they probably won’t smell quite as much.
But what still needs to be done to accomplish this? While much of the technology is present in some form, it needs to be better, cheaper and applied in some standardized way.
Power systems: Critical, obviously. Authors Mitchell, Borroni-Bird and Burns say electric-drive vehicles are required to make this whole idea work. They call for remaking “automotive DNA,” starting with vehicles powered by batteries or fuel cells. “With this new DNA, our vehicles will be electric drive, fueled by electricity and hydrogen, electronically controlled, and will function as nodes in a connected transportation network,” they write. Needed are better batteries, or, more likely, fuel cells. “Only the hydrogen fuel cell option promises to combine the range and
refueling-time convenience of conventional family-sized vehicles with the energy and environmental benefits of pure battery-powered vehicles,” they write.
Sensors: They’re pretty good but not very affordable. The U.S. Army’s Convoy Active Safety Technology (CAST) program has created bolt-on kits that can allow vehicles to follow a leader vehicle, brake in synchronicity and detect and avoid obstacles, but they cost around $30,000 per vehicle and “even that’s too expensive,” James Overholt, director of the Joint Center for Robotics at U.S. Army Research and Development Command (RDECOM)-Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), tells Mission Critical. “But I can say with a good deal of confiMission Critical
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Technology Gap — continued from page 41
It will take a lot of work to reach the day when conveyances such as this experimental vehicle, developed by Segway, General Motors and SAIC, frequent the roadways. Photo courtesy Segway.
dence that we’re pretty good at operating in benign environments without a lot of people around on unstructured roadways. We can do that.” Adding in moving people and objects gets more difficult. However, the private sector is doing some amazing things with sensors these days, he says.
Autonomous Drive, Connected Vehicle and Robotics Workshop.
Greg Kruger, intelligent transportation systems manager for the state of Michigan Department of Transportation, agrees on the cost issue for hardware. “This cannot be expensive,” he said at a 2009 gathering of intelligent vehicle experts. “This cannot significantly affect the cost of a vehicle.”
Network standards: Vehicles that can talk aren’t much good if they can’t communicate with each other regardless of what company built them. The U.S. Department of Transportation is working with a variety of industry partners on vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications, which must function for both a sleek new car and an old but retrofitted truck. “Interoperability is critical to the effectiveness of V2V safety systems,” the DOT says.
Mercedes-Benz tech officials Luca Delgrossi and Christina Coplen also site sensors as a key area. “You can do a lot with sensors. … The art of it really is getting down to a sensor fusion and a software set that can fit on a very small package that you can put into multiple vehicles,” Coplen said at the AUVSI Great Lakes Chapter’s 2010
It can’t just be the signals, either. The “Reinventing the Automobile” authors note that interoperability standards are also required for “connection to charging infrastructure and electric grids and hardware interfaces among crucial components and subsystems.” Plug and play: not just for your computer anymore.
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Public desire: You can lead people to a better horse, but you can’t make them ride. Michigan DOT’s Kruger says public awareness will be one key enabler for intelligent transportation. Good design — actually having cool new cars — is one way to get there, say the “Reinventing the Automobile” authors. “To succeed on a large scale, future vehicles must have the look and feel of a new and desirable kind of product. Nobody thinks of an iPod as a shrunken home stereo system, and nobody should be left with the impression that an intelligent electric-drive vehicle is a dull but worthy ‘econobox.’” n To read “Reinventing the Automobile,” scan this barcode with your smartphone. To see a video of MIT’s proposed City Car, scan this barcode with your smartphone.
Uncanny Valley
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he commercial starts ominously, with a car approaching through a tunnel.
Who’s afraid of hands-free driving?
“Hands-free driving,” says a deep male voice. “Cars that park themselves. An automated car driven by a search-engine company. We’ve seen that movie. It ends with robots harvesting our bodies for energy.” The car speeds up and the announcer informs us it’s the 2011 Dodge Charger, “leader of the human resistance.” The Charger then speeds out of the tunnel toward presumably non-automated freedom. So this vehicle is some kind of technology-free throwback? Not exactly. The Charger comes equipped with Uconnect, a screen-based system that controls all entertainment and vehicle settings. One option is Sirius satellite radio travel link, which includes weather, fuel prices, sports and movie listings along the way “to make every trip more efficient.” All of that is controlled by the driver, of course, and so doesn’t invalidate the car’s seeming fear of electronics. But the Charger also comes equipped with an electronic stability control system, which detects when a vehicle is starting to spin and “attempts to correct the vehicle’s course by automatically controlling the throttle and applying the brakes on individual wheels,” according to Dodge. It does that by working with the car’s antilock brake system, another safety devices that enhances driver control by taking some of it away. That system is standard on all models of the Charger. One option is the adaptive cruise control, which gives a warning when another car gets too close. So the Charger, far from being an electronics-free stripper model, has many upto-date driver-assist features that people expect of a modern car (though it does not seem to park itself). “Americans … love driving their cars; I don’t think you’ll get away from that, but I think we’ll be able to provide much safer cars,” says James Overholt, the director of
the Joint Center for Robotics at U.S. Army Research and Development Command (RDECOM)-Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC). “The technology is there that now will take some of the so-to-speak driving functions out of the hands of the users, potentially in emergency situations.” Overholt says safety, and demonstrating that safety, is key to integrating this technology into civilian and military vehicles, but it makes sense economically, too. He asks a question: What percentage of a gallon of gas goes to moving a 3,000-pound car carrying a 150-pound human? “One percent. One percent of a gallon of gas goes toward actually moving the human being. Seventy-five percent is lost in heat, so you’re left with 25 percent and now you’ve got to distribute that and when you do the math it comes down to 1 percent. As engineers, we should be ashamed of that. Even 2 to 3 percent, the savings would be enormous,” he says. “If you can start getting into vehicles that are intelligent, you can start avoiding accidents; much of the vehicle weight is given up in providing protection for the soft, squishy things in the frame … so if you can start avoiding accidents you can start taking weight out, and if you can start taking weight out you can start taking parts out. So there’s this whole cascading effect that happens once you start implementing
intelligent technology.” The two most powerful obstacles to the greater use of unmanned systems and robotics are “safety and public acceptance,” says Michael Toscano, president and CEO of AUVSI. With cars, however, the world has shown it is willing to accept risk when the reward is so obvious. In the years since Henry Ford introduced the Model T, tens of thousands have died each year, and now “there are six million accidents a year, just in the U.S., and those six million accidents cost us over $230 billion in medical costs,” Toscano says. If you asked a person in 1908 — the year the Model T was first produced — if they would be willing to accept technology that would revolutionize the world and increase human mobility to an unprecedented scale but along with it would come tens of thousands of deaths each year and billions in medical costs, the answer might well be no. But because cars proved themselves over time, the answer now is yes. But it should have anti-lock brakes and traction control. And, if it could park itself, that would be nice. n To watch the Dodge Charger commercial, scan this barcode with your smartphone.
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Timeline
Automated Systems in Mercedes Benz Mercedes-Benz is one of the few carmakers in the world whose roots extend to the dawn of the automobile era. Its early efforts were very much of the “horseless carriage” variety of transportation, but the world’s oldest automaker has steadily introduced or advanced many of the safety technologies that are bringing us to the era when cars not only move their passengers, they protect them. Here’s a timeline of where Mercedes-Benz — and the rest of the automobile industry — has been regarding safety innovations.
1886: Gottleib Dalmer, one of the founders of Mercedes-Benz, invents a horseless carriage. That same year, Daimler, Benz and Maybach independently develop the internal combustion engine.
1924:
1894:
Mercedes-Benz cars are the first to have brakes on all four wheels.
Carl Benz creates his first production car, the Benz Velo, which raced in the first recorded Paris-Rouen race.
1950s:
1951:
Mercedes-Benz opens U.S. dealerships and forms Mercedes-Benz USA.
The company introduces the safety cage concept, which includes “crumple zones” to minimize harm to passengers in accidents.
1954: Mercedes Benz introduces the 300SL car to the market. It was the fastest car of its time, and the first car to use gasoline direct injection for power.
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All photos courtesy Mercedes-Benz.
1980s:
1987:
1995:
2002:
A team from Bundeswehr University of Munich equips a Mercedes van with sensors to create VaMoRs, a self-driving robotic van.
Mercedes-Benz introduces its traction control system, which keeps cars from skidding by taking over some vehicle braking and acceleration control.
A retooled MercedesBenz S-Class car drives from Munich to Copenhagen and back, at times reaching 109 mph.
Mercedes-Benz launches Pre-SAFE systems in cars. Pre-SAFE detects potential accident scenarios in advance and triggers preventive measures to the vehicle and driver for a potential impact.
2005: Mercedes-Benz introduces DISTRONIC PLUS and brake-assist plus technologies to its S-Class vehicles. DISTRONIC PLUS keeps the car a set distance behind the vehicle in front, applies the brakes as required and can even bring the car to a complete halt, depending on the traffic situation. If the gap to the vehicle in front narrows too quickly, the system gives the driver an audible warning and, as soon as this first warning signal sounds, automatically calculates the brake pressure required to prevent a collision in this situation.
2006: Mercedes-Benz puts DISTRONIC PLUS and brake-assist plus in its CL-Class vehicles.
2008: Mercedes-Benz introduces Attention Assist technology, which detects when drivers become drowsy and alerts them to take a break.
2010: Mercedes-Benz’s CL-class vehicles include Active LaneKeeping Assist and Active Blind Spot Assist. These new innovations are part of the two dozen driver-assist programs that Mercedes-Benz installs in CL-class vehicles.
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Testing, Testing
A driverless Mountain View Google gets in on the autonomous car action in California From the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., to Santa Monica, down San Francisco’s ski-able Lombard Street, across the Golden Gate bridge, breezing down the PCH, day tripping to Lake Tahoe, Google’s autonomous car joyride reads like a burgeoning band’s first West Coast tour itinerary. More than 140,000 miles later, Google accomplished what the company calls a robotics first.
Google drove autonomous Toyota Priuses up and down the California coast, clocking in more than 140,000 miles behind the wheel. Photo courtesy Google.
I
t wasn’t a university or a traditional robotics company that grabbed the national spotlight last year for its autonomous car testing. It was that all-encompassing Internet giant Google that paved the way, outfitting a Toyota Prius with autonomous car technology and taking matters into its own hands, driving up and down the California coast to test it.
passenger seat to monitor the software. “Any test begins by sending out a driver in a conventionally driven car to map the route and road conditions,” he continues. “By mapping features like lane markers and traffic signs, the software in the car becomes familiar with the environment and its characteristics in advance. And we’ve briefed local police on our work.”
Google outwardly admitted to what some autonomous car geeks only whisper to others when in good company: If you put a guy behind the wheel of an autonomous car, you can test away — no permits, no sectioned off road, no fuss at all. “Safety has been our first priority in this project,” says Sebastian Thurn, a software engineer at Google, on the company’s blog. “Our cars are never unmanned. We always have a trained safety driver behind the wheel who can take over as easily as one disengages cruise control. And we also have a trained software operator in the
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Though it wasn’t a first for their engineers. Google gathered some of the best and brightest from the DARPA Challenges and tasked them with the feat. Chris Urmson, technical team leader from Carnegie Mellon in 2007; Mike Montemarlo, software lead on the winning 2005 Stanford Grand Challenge team; and Anthony Levandowski, autonomous motorcycle and pizza delivery expert, all worked for the “Don’t be evil” company in securing a place in autonomous car history. The goal for Google: cut down on the 1.2 million lives lost in traffic accidents every year. “We believe our technology has the potential to cut that number, perhaps by as much as half,” says Thurn. “We’re also confident that self-driving cars will transform car sharing, significantly reducing car usage, as well as help create the new ‘highway trains of tomorrow.’” Not to mention the 52 minutes a day spent commuting, says Thrun, citing a U.S. Department of Transportation stat. “Imagine being able to spend that time more productively.”
The guts of Google’s car. Photo courtesy Google.
Fifty-two minutes is, after all, quite a few cat videos on the company’s YouTube. n
End Users
Robert Finkelstein
“I think by 2020, you should be able to buy a hands-
R
obert Finkelstein’s career in unmanned systems spans more than 40 years and includes a stint on the board of AUVSI. But it wasn’t until a conference on robotics in the 1980s that his focus moved from unmanned systems in military operations to civilian life. “I got an epiphany that unmanned vehicles, remotely piloted vehicles, etc. were robots,” Finkelstein says. “I never thought of it in that sense before and neither did most people. They weren’t called robots typically back then at all.” Now, as president of Robotic Technology Inc., he’s taking unmanned systems to the streets, literally, with the Transportation Technology Transfer Initiative, or T3I. The project, co-sponsored by AUVSI, aims to help introduce driver-optional or driverless cars to American roads in the next 10 to 15 years.
free or driver-optional car for general purpose use that will be able to recognize pedestrians, stop signs, traffic signals and so on in relatively complex environments.” “I think by 2020, you should be able to buy a hands-free or driver-optional car for general purpose use that will be able to recognize pedestrians, stop signs, traffic signals and so on in relatively complex environments,” Finkelstein says. Much of the technology that will serve as a gateway to these “smart cars” already exists. Modern technologies such as GPS, EZ-Pass and OnStar were in their nascent developmental stages just 20 years ago. Specifically, the introduction of automated cruise control to vehicles started to ease some of the burden of driving — the driver only has to focus on steering, while his feet
remain free. According to Finkelstein, this technology became successful because of a “demand pull on the technology, not just a technology push”— the cost to manufacture the technology dropped considerably while the end product continued to increase driver performance. But the current technologies on the market represent just a small part of what car buyers could potentially enjoy. “It’s not being heavily advertised by the automotive manufacturers for a variety for reasons, and it’s not clear to me what all these reasons are,” Finkelstein says. “Some things like the automated parking system Mission Critical
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End Users — continued from page 47
“Given that there aren’t a lot of people who enjoy commuting, having the ability to do other things … would create a major demand for the technology when people realize these benefits, not to mention the greater efficiency of the commute.”
available in some cars was advertised here, but for the most part the technology is relatively under the radar, so to speak.” The next step in bringing smart cars to the streets involves a convergence of ideas between the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation and the automotive industry. The Department of Defense has already introduced numerous driverless systems to its ground and air forces. More recently, intelligent vehicle demonstrations like the DARPA Grand Challenges in 2004 and 2005 and the Urban Challenge in 2007 showcased driverless cars and trucks competing on cross-country terrain and urban streets, respectively. In the Urban Challenge, unmanned vehicles had to account for obstacles in the road, including pedestrians. The next technological step is improving the “intelligence” of unmanned systems to make the safe for roads. “I would call it perception: the ability for the robot or intelligent vehicle to perceive, which involves sensing,” Finkelstein says. “But beyond sensing, not just seeing objects and knowing that there is an object, but understanding the significance of the object and how the robot or intelligent vehicle is supposed to behave in the presence of that object.” Finkelstein says he expects unmanned systems to obtain this level of human-like cognizance between 2030 and 2050. In the
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meantime, General Motors predicts it will have driverless cars on the market as early as 2015, but Finkelstein thinks 2020 is a more realistic goal. By 2025, Finkelstein says driverless vehicles will have a substantial foothold in everyday life through services such as deliveries and interstate trucking. Ultimately, Finkelstein believes the emergence of smart cars will “virtually eliminate crashes and death and destruction.” By decreasing wreckage on roadways, Finkelstein also predicts smart cars will increase efficiency in road lanes, meaning drivers can enjoy a more pleasurable and productive commute. “Currently people spend an enormous amount of time while commuting … doing texting or phoning or putting on makeup or reading a book or all kinds of other things, even semi-sleeping, that are quite dangerous,” Finkelstein says. “Given that there aren’t a lot of people who enjoy commuting, having the ability to do other things … would create a major demand for the technology when people realize these benefits, not to mention the greater efficiency of the commute.” From an institutional standpoint, putting more efficient smart cars on the road could mean that local governments don’t have to spend as much money on new road construction and road maintenance. Furthermore, Finkelstein says tech companies like Google could use their expertise
in software development to go in to the automotive industry. The introduction of smart cars to the road will also force the automotive industry to phase out drivercontrolled cars. Finkelstein says the two could not co-exist safely on roads and this gradual elimination of driver-controlled cars will probably take place in one generation. After that, driver-controlled cars won’t be allowed on highways in the same sense that horse-drawn carriages aren’t allowed on highways — they would simply be too dangerous. “This will also have an adverse effect initially on all people who make a living driving,” Finkelstein admits. “The same thing with trucks, transportation systems and the like. If you can have vehicles that don’t need a human driver, then this creates a problem for current drivers. The advent of intelligent vehicles will also, though, create all kinds of other jobs in developing newer and better software and censors, instrumentation for the infrastructure and so on. There will be many new enterprises, many new goods and services as a consequence of intelligent vehicle technology.” As these changes progress, T3I will play a role in examining the consequences of this new technology, both positive and negative, for the civilian and military sectors. “The benefits of this technology once it’s achieved and perfected will be very compelling,” Finkelstein says. n
Where the World of Robotics & Unmanned Systems Comes t ogether
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DATE Over 450 Exhibits Over 50 Countries Over 6,000 Attendees • 4 Days of Education and Exhibits! • LIVE Demonstration Areas for Air, Ground and Maritime Vehicles • Broad Industry Representation in Civil, Commercial, and Government Markets • The World’s Largest Gathering for the Unmanned Systems and Robotics Communities
You’re going to need some comfortable shoes if you want to see everything at this show. Cover IV This will be our largest exhibition yet with more than 450 FP Ad
exhibitors, indoor static space and indoor air, ground and maritime demonstration areas, plus more than 150 technical, workshop, panel
and presentations, networking events and more than 6,000 international attendees. Hopefully your feet will survive!
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