AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
In pursuit of the highest levels of autonomy Level 5 is the aim but there is still a long way to go before drivers can take a back seat
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he advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is one of the most exciting and challenging developments the automotive industry has experienced. The progress of these vehicles is complex and requires thousands of hours of research and development. Many vehicles on the road today are already well on the way to becoming fully autonomous, with semiautonomous features such as adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist now commonplace. With such complexity surrounding the development and drivers’ understanding of AVs and their capabilities, a set of guidelines has
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been determined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) to describe the differing levels of autonomy. There are four distinct levels of autonomy which exist at present to varying degrees, with a potential fifth level some way in the future. Level 1: the most basic, involves a single aspect of automation using data from sensors and cameras, but the driver is very much still in control. First seen in the late 1990s with the introduction of radar-managed cruise control, while basic lane-keep assist was introduced to consumers in 2008. Level 2: where vehicles control two or more elements of driving and this is the level high-specification cars operate at today.
