“Just a few years ago, automated parking was a revolutionary new technology — now it comes as a standard option in some production models. This is how I believe driverless vehicles will come to be accepted in the future," says Wei-Bin Zhang, IEEE fellow and a researcher engineer at the California PATH program, Institute of Transportation Studies of University of California at Berkeley. That’s right — we may be on the brink of an all-out self-driving car revolution. We’ve already seen cars that can stay in their lanes and apply the breaks by themselves, so to many, an autonomous car is just the next step in the natural progression. And the automotive industry is taking this very seriously. According to a study by Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), the self-driving market is estimated to grow to $33.89 billion in the next five years. In late August, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) hosted a roundtable discussion on the future and practicality of driverless vehicles. The discussion, which was hosted at the University of Southern California, brought together five industry experts from disciplines including driverless vehicle technology, policy/regulations and law, to review the most pressing issues facing autonomous adoption. The consensus among the experts was that driverless technology would reach widespread adoption by 2030, but the panelists made its clear that there are still a few considerations that need to be addressed before that can happen. In response to the panel, IEEE conducted a survey with both experts from the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, as well as the organization's Facebook and Twitter audiences to gauge overall sentiment surrounding this budding technology. The results indicate that people are a bit apprehensive. Based on the survey findings, respondents claimed they worried about their kids’ safety. Over 70% of those surveyed said that they would not be comfortable with their children being driven to school in an autonomous vehicle. Additionally, most think that the technology involved, specifically sensor software, needs to be developed further for a fully autonomous vehicle to be considered safe. Respondents were also concerned about who would be found responsible if an autonomous vehicle caused an accident: Generally, people would prefer if the software manufacturer or developer would be considered at fault, rather than the owner. Shifting perceptions of liability in this case would require additional regulations to be put in place, which is another factor in most people’s hesitation to accept this new tech. As for how this tech would be used, based on a list of multiple choice examples, those responding through social media said that they’d most likely use autonomous cars to get to work, while experts said they would use it for daily errands. The two groups agreed, however, that this tech will be slowly integrated into the market over time, and that the U.S. will be the first to get it. Either Japan or Germany will presumably follow, according to the respondents. One of the primary discussion points during the IEEE roundtable was the continued development of communication technology needed to make self-driving cars a reality. Specifically, there needs to be modes of communication between cars (V2V), and between a car and infrastructure (V2I). Luckily, there is already technology in place that is laying the groundwork for V2V communication in particular. Many cars have Wi-Fi and similar short-range networks that could enable this communication between cars with some improvements and expansion of bandwidth. This sort of technology would help the vehicles to avoid collisions and make them generally safer. As for V2I, this tech could help drivers to overcome their limits when behind the wheel. For example, an automated car would not be waiting for a light to turn green, it would know exactly when a stoplight will change. Sensors could also avoid problems that come with a driver’s limited lines of sight and blind spots. Jeffrey Miller, IEEE member and associate professor of engineering practice at the University of Southern California, sees a bright future in the utilization of V2V and V2I technology. “This [V2V and V2I] is something that is not difficult to do," he says. "We have short range personal networks like Bluetooth, and even cellular providers are saying that we don’t need to have the vehicles with each other over an ad-hoc network, but perhaps they still communicate through the infrastructure and, when they hit on of the base stations, it comes back to communicate with one of the vehicles that are in close proximity to it. The technology seems like it’s there, but we’re going to need to increase the bandwidth as well as constantly improve the networks that we have.” No matter who’s projection is correct, exciting times are certainly ahead. And sooner rather than later, we’ll safely be able to put our cars on autopilot. Click here to watch IEEE's panel in its entirety, and for more information on IEEE, visit: https://www.ieee.org/index.html.
Back in August, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) hosted a roundtable discussion on the future and practicality of driverless vehicles. The discussion brought together five industry experts from disciplines including driverless vehicle technology, policy/regulations and law, to review the most pressing issues facing autonomous adoption. In addition to discussing these issues, participants also discussed how they would address them if given the opportunity to do so by their respective governments.