Chapter 6: IoT - Autonomous Cars Flashcards
What does the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) do?
- Formally defined six different levels of automation
- Unified vocabulary for common understanding
- Helps to keep track of driverless technology advancement
What are the six level of automation and on which threshold do machines monitor the environment
0: No Automation
1: Driver Assistance
2: Partial Automation
- —- Automated Driving System Monitors Driving Environment (Machine takes over the majority of the tasks) ———
3: Conditional Automation
4: High Automation
5: Full Automation
According to the SAE levels, which tasks are either executed by a human driver or the system?
- Execution of steering and acceleration / deceleration
- Monitoring of driving environment
- Fallback performance of dynamic driving task
- System capability (driving modes)
Explain the Waymo - Formerly Googles Driverless Car
- Passed more than 5 million miles in tests
- Integrates driverless technology in existing cars
Vision: Fully autonomous - no steering wheel / pedals
Technology: sensors, cameras, embedded HW, LIDAR system
Explain the LiDAR technology
- Similar to radar, uses light pulses (millions per second)
- Distance to objects is measured when laser pulses bounce back to scanner attached on car (accuracy of +- 2cm)
Result: Accurate 3D Maps of the car environment
What is the formula for measuring distance with the LiDAR Technology?
d = (Et x c) / 2
d = distance Et = elapsed time c = speed of light
What are issues of LiDAR Technology?
- Dirty sensors
- Stabilization issues due to holes
- Dynamic traffic like police lights that could interfere with the light sensor
Explain the Mercedes Intelligent Drive “Bertha”
- Vision: Assisted driving
- Cameras for positioning and obstacle / traffic detection
- LiDAR for obstacle detection integrated into chassis
- More sensors -> more protection
What are the functions of mercedes intelligent drive?
- Front cameras: traffic sign recognition
- Back short range radar: for rear collision warning
- Front long-range radar: for adaptive cruise control
What are some issues with Mercedes intelligent drive?
- Weather impact on sensors
- Traffic light recognition at intersections
Explain the Tesla Autopilot and what is the challenge with it?
- Teslas strategy: Full autonomy using only cameras, radar, and ultrasonic sensors (no LiDAR)
- Still in beta version, keeps lane & speed but does not change the street at intersections
Challenge:
Accidents have been a source of controversy! (White truck could not be identified on a very sunny sky)
Describe the Autonomous Driving Architecture
The architecture runs in a control loop (Sense, Think, Act) that feeds the system.
Perception Layer: Software is linked to actuators / to the outside (camera / sensors) to build a model of the environment)
Interpretation and Planning: Understand the scene, predict what is going to happen in the scene, plan maneuvers
Control: Plan the trajectory and dynamically control the planned trajectory
What are other essential parts of autonomous cars except for driving?
- There are many embedded systems in a car
- Interconnected embedded systems work together in the car (media and control systems)
Which embedded systems exist in a car?
- Controller area network (CAN bus): designed for communication between microcontrollers and devices
- Electronic control unit (ECU): generic term for embedded system that controls electrical systems in a vehicle (brake control module, Engine control module)
ECUs are often connected through the CAN
What are the security implications of autonomous driving?
- Its possible to hack a car and to control almost all functionalities
- Hack was possible because CAN was not separated from entertainment system
- After entering CAN almost every ECU could be controlled
What are the challenges of autonomous cars?
- Technical problems (unintended acceleration)
- Interactions with humans (police, pedestrians)
- Sensor quality (detection of traffic lights, different weather conditions, hacks)
- Liability issues
- Cost
- Ethical and oral reasoning
What is the current status of autonomous cars according to the SAE levels?
- Stage 0 - 2 are already implemented
- Stage 3 is technically feasible and the current state of the art
We are approaching Level 4
How does the future of autonomous driving look like?
2020: Hands off
2025: Eyes off
2030: Drivers out
Why is traffic a problem?
- Traffic increases yearly
- Accounts for 14% of CO2 emission
- Traffic jam burns money
- Accidents
Describe the advantages of coordinated driving (internet of vehicles)
- Coordinated driving improves traffic flows / exceptional situation handling (approaching ambulance - rescue lane)
- Improves safety in cities
- Improves safety on highways (when its foggy / is aware of a car behind a truck)
What is platooning?
- A technique where vehicles travel together in formation with small gaps in between
What are the requirements for platooning?
- Each car needs to have Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) to keep distance and lane
- The group of cars needs to have cooperative ACC –> Communication for coordination
What are the benefits of platooning?
- Capacity of cars on the street can be increases
- Fuel saving due reduced gap size
- Safety through autonomous driving and communication
What are the different coordination steps in platooning?
- Inter-platoon actions: How to control the different platoons
- Finding / joining a suitable platoon
- Leaving a platoon
What are the challenges of platooning?
- There are still non-controllable vehicles
- Speed restrictions (a empty truck vs a full loaded truck)
- Coordination of platoons when electric cars have different battery levels
- Waiting for your platoon that may be still far away
What is the benefit of iCOD: Infrastructure-aided cooperative driving
- Application of adaptive software principles to platooning to let interact non-controllable vehicles with controllable vehicles
- Works good because platooning acts in an adaptive environment and needs to take actions
How does the iCOD approach work?
Approach:
- Based on the observation of the sensors, the platooning coordinator could
- Observe traffic
- Forecast traffic
- Plan strategies
- Communicate with other coordinators
How is iCOD developed further?
- Combination of demonstration and simulation
- as Waymo from google
- Good approach
What are the benefits of autonomous and connected cars?
- Less accidents, better traffic management, efficient driving
Are autonomous cars technologically viable?
- Yes
- Which SAE stage is currently achieved?
Partially automated driving
What are the challenges of autonomous and connected cars?
- Cost
- Regulation
- Safety
- Technical functionalities (recognition under bad weather conditions)
