Intelligent Vehicles: An International Look at Trends and Issues
IVsource.net
13 October 2002

... or, “Intelligent Vehicles in a Nutshell,” a broad overview and quick read for readers inside and outside the IV world.

Fast coming to our roads and everyday lives are intelligent vehicle systems.  Intelligent vehicles are capable of automatically assessing road situations and assisting drivers in operation of their vehicles, offering significant benefits in the way of convenience, safety, and productivity.  These vehicles possess sensing, perception, driver-vehicle interface, and possibly actuation capability – that is, the driver is advised of a critical situation and/or automatic systems control the brakes, throttle, or steering as necessary to avoid a crash.

This short overview article will take a look at where we are now, in both the commercial sector and government programs, as well as current trends, emerging research topics, and major issues.

Where We Are Now:  Commercial Sector for Intelligent Vehicles

As can be seen above, quite a variety of intelligent vehicle systems have entered the market in various parts of the world.  The Japanese market is considered best for early product introductions, followed generally by Europe.  The US market is last on the list for most IV products due to the liability climate there – manufacturers want to make sure the systems are robust and reliable before increasing their risk exposure.

Where We Are Now:  Government Programs

Governments are investing in the development, evaluation, and deployment of IV systems on a global basis. 

In the US, it’s the USDOT's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative, which is focusing on active safety systems for cars, trucks, buses, and specialty vehicles (including snowplows).  Evaluation of safety impacts is key, generally through extensive ffield operational testing.  Examples of systems being evaluated are forward collision warning for passenger cars, lane departure warning, road departure warning, stability control, electronically controlled braking, side object detection, drowsy driver countermeasures, and automatic collision notification.  They are also supporting pre-competitive research w/ vehicle OEMs.

The Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport has completed Phase II of work through their AHSRA research consortium.  Crash countermeasure systems have been prototyped for fog, curves, forward obstacles, pedestrian detection, and intersections.  Their approach includes both autonomous vehicle systems and cooperative vehicle-highway systems, and extensive deployment planning is now complete.

National programs in Europe include the French LIVIC laboratory, the Dutch Advanced Vehicle Guidance program, the German INVENT program, and the Swedish Intelligent Speed Adaptation program, all of which focus on developing advanced features.  In the UK, DTLR has just published a major new research plan, which includes a strong component to develop cooperative vehicle-highway systems.

Some Trends

Adaptive Cruise Control is the flagship IV system on the market right now.  ACC maintains a set speed like normal cruise control, but uses radar or lidar to monitor the distance to any slower preceding vehicles and to maintain a driver-selectable gap in those cases.  The experience, on the motorway at least, is virtually foot-free driving.  ACC was introduced in Japan in the mid-nineties and in Europe in the late nineties.  It is now available from Mercedes Benz, BMW, Jaguar, Renault, and Nissan.  In the US, the system is available from Mercedes Benz, Nissan, and Toyota.  Recently, Volkswagen announced they will offer the system next year, and Jaguar has announced an introduction in the US soon.  Reports from the dealerships indicate good uptake on these systems, which add in the range of $800 – $2200 to the price of the vehicle.  ACC is seen as a key test case for future IV products – will drivers trust the systems?  Will they find them useful, even indispensable?  Will the inevitable imperfections be accepted?

In addition, given the litigious climate in the US, manufacturers will be gauging their future strategy with respect to IV systems by their experience with ACC in that market.

Forward Collision Warning (FCW) systems for passenger cars are not far away.  A precursor is pre-crash safety systems, which use radar to sense an impending crash, stiffening passenger restraints and firing the airbag just before impact.  Experience with this system will be important in evaluating radar performance for FCW.  Toyota has announced they are introducing a pre-crash safety system in 2003.  The US government is also investing heavily in development and evaluation of FCW in a joint project with General Motors.  Later this year, a fleet of Buicks will hit the road, equipped with a near-production quality FCW system.  The cars will be driver by volunteer drivers in normal everyday usage, with data recorders gathering information on usage and effectiveness.

Driver Workload Managers are also being developed as one of many ways to address driver distraction.  These systems combine 360 degree monitoring, which assesses traffic complexity in addition to close proximity vehicles, with in-cab driver activity monitoring to manage the flow of information and interruptions to the driver.  For example, if the driver is in the midst of making a lane change, the Driver Workload Manager would hold a cell phone call and suppress the ringing phone for several seconds until the driver is safely in the new lane.

Emerging Research Topics

While substantial research has been done in the past for emergency conditions, understanding driver behavior for normal, uneventful driving has arisen as a key need in order to provide a baseline for driver distraction and other driver performance measures.  Similarly, crash pre-cursors are a key knowledge gap – what happens in those countless near-miss situations that could tell us something about crash avoidance?  Data collection systems are now being deployed by researchers and highway agencies to monitor vehicle interactions at places such as high-crash intersections.  Data collected will be analyzed to understand the complex vehicle interactions.

Delivering to the Public on ITS  

What is the traveling public’s biggest fear?  A crash in which they or their loved ones are involved.  This sentiment drives sales of IV safety systems.  Yet, crashes are so rare for any one person, that this possibility generally stays in the background.  

Looking at road travel from a different dimension, what is the public’s biggest daily headache?  Most would agree that it is the appalling traffic conditions on many roads.  Cooperative vehicle-highway systems offer a ray of hope.  In order to bring two very different worlds together and achieve some gains, traffic managers must begin to think of vehicles as controllable system components, and vehicle manufacturer s must look beyond the vehicle to offer their customers systems which can potentially improve their trip time.

An Intelligent Vehicle Future

Intelligent vehicles are coming into the marketplace and therefore into our everyday lives.  A steady rollout of such systems for cars and trucks can be expected throughout this decade and beyond.  These systems hold the promise of much safer travel, and, in working with smart highway systems, the possibility of greatly improved traffic flow.

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