Control Engineering

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Production of Automated Vehicles - civilian
September 24, 2007

Let's run the numbers and take a look at what life in the civilian sector may look like shortly after the Nov. 3, 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge race.  There is a great deal of pressure working to make automated vehicles the norm.  As active safety systems - horse sense put into the vehicles - the driverless systems look to the insurance companies to be something like seat belts.  First only used in racing, then later an option, eventually as law with fines and penalties if you don't use them.  Each seatbelt used saves the insurance companies money.  These new active safety systems being developed as part of the driverless system may follow a similar path.  We may see a day when there will be fines for taking manual control of your vehicle on the highway, endangering others.  Control engineers will be shaping this future.  What do you want it to look like?  What features do you want your car to have?

MONEY
Each automobile plant produces about 600,000 automobiles each year.  Each supplier who supplies a $10 dollar part for the driverless system that goes on these cars stands to make $6 million in sales - per automobile plant.  If they supply more parts they could make even more money - per plant.

LIVES
In the USA there are about 5,000 fatal traffic accidents each month.  Air bags have been saving about 1,000 of these lives a month.  Driverless systems that drive defensively, cautiously, and never blink could prevent nearly all accidents.  The improved safety record of the airline industry follows closely the increasing amounts of automation brought on board commercial airliners.  What is the social and economic value of not having and accident?  Each person not killed adds about $1 million dollars to the economy in their life time.  

POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY
The European Community has passed a resolution to cut traffic fatalities in half in the EC by 2010.  Each of the EC member nations has taken this goal seriously and each is trying to out do the other in creating a legal environment in their country that encourages anything that will help them reach the 2010 goal.  The leading automotive technology is being tried out in the EC first.  Then in the rest of the world later.

THE WEAKEST LINK
We are discovering that people are the weakest link in the worlds transportation system.  Allsate Insurance ads on TV highlight the unsafe things that people are doing in their cars while driving.  This is what people want to do while in their cars, we should see if we cal allow them to do what they want to do and still make it safe for everyone.  Driver error - people are responsible for over 98% of the fatal accidents.  While a person may have an exceptionally good driving record, it only takes a moments inattention to cross the centerline and meet the oncoming traffic head on.  As a tedious task requiring 100% continuous attention, driving falls within the class of tasks best left to machines.   Now that technology has advanced sufficiently, machines are now ready to take over the driving task as shown by a variety of vehicles in Europe and the ones demonstrated for the DARPA Urban Challenge.

CARS 
Safety improvements in automobiles have reached the limit of what static safety measures such as padded dashes etc. can achieve.  All future gains in safety will have to be made with active safety systems.   Things like air bags, advanced stability systems, etc.  Automobiles are increasingly becoming drive-by-wire which allows the computer intelligence on board to step in and prevent an accident that is about to happen.  The digital maps car navigation systems use have the speed limit data for each segment of road and curve ahead in their data base.  A car can sense that you are entering a turn too fast and slow the vehicle down - preventing an accident and preventing the car company from loosing its customer.

BUSSES - TRAINS
There have been many examples of busses and trains being automated.  Without a driver to pay there could be more busses going more places for the same amount of money.  This makes transit authorities that invest in automation look good to their stock holders or voters so there is some pressure there to implement the systems that are becoming available. 

TRUCKS 
In the USA there is a truck driver shortage.  Everything a person uses in their daily life involves trucks as some point in its production and distribution.   Valuable cargo is being delayed and commerce slowed because there are about 50,000 fewer drivers available than what is needed.  The situation is going to get worse, by 2010 the trucking industry sees a shortfall of 100,000 drivers as the ones driving now age out of the system and are not replaced by younger drivers.  This may be the reason behind the Government allowing truck drivers from Mexico to make deliveries in the USA.  US drivers are paid about $100,000 per year in pay and benefits but the harshness of life on the road turns young people away from taking up the occupation.  Driverless trucks hauling freight, patterned after the Army's driverless systems might be the answer to delivering the nations cargo.



GO ROBOTS !

Posted by Paul Grayson on September 24, 2007 | Comments (0)