The road to autonomy –

a first practical step

Doug Cross, Founder

Tel. +44 (0) 7825240709
E: doug.cross@leadfoot.ltd

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 Contents

• Customer Expectations
• AV progress to date
• The challenges and hurdles that reflect reality
• First steps and safe practices
• 2 challenges when replacing the driver
• World trends and how they affect the AV market
• Where will we see autonomy first?

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Public Expectations

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 Public Expectations Vs Reality

Source:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2017
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 Public Expectations Vs Reality
• Typical Autonomous Tech
consumes >2kW of power

• To put this in perspective, on

the NEDC, a luxury sedan
consumes an average of
4.5kW of power

• This will have a significant

impact on fuel economy /
range

• The largest driver of power

consumption is image
processing hardware

• This is a key area that GPU

hardware manufacturers are
seeking to address
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 Public Expectations Vs Reality

Trucks that look like billboards

Lorrys that look like roads

Transition from
There are a lot of edge cases to consider! road to stairs

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 Intention Of Autonomy
Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year and an additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled.
90% of the fatal crashes were due to human error
http://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safety-facts/road-crash-statistics

=> Fix this by providing full Autonomy in all passenger & freight vehicles

However …
The international Transport Workers Federation (ITF) estimates that 4.4m of the 6.4m professional trucking jobs
could be eliminated by autonomous technology – Industry Push-back

A 2013 survey, on “in-vehicle technology use”, revealed that 20% of drivers NEVER used cruise control, and 46%
only occasionally – Consumer push-back

=> Logical step - provide accident avoidance functionality, not full driver replacement => Improve
ADAS systems first
=> Accept that you will have the safety, but not the convenience of a self-driving car

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 First Steps & Safe Practices
ADAS for Collision Avoidance in all its guises;
- Auto braking (Avoid frontal collision)
- Auto accelerate (Avoid rear-end collision)
- Lane change to avoid collisions
> Functional safety case proven (ABS)
> Fewer edge cases to test for
> Faster to market

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 First Steps & Safe Practices
ADAS for Collision Avoidance in all its guises;
- Auto braking (Avoid frontal collision)
- Auto accelerate (Avoid rear-end collision)
- Lane change to avoid collisions
> Functional safety case proven (ABS)
> Fewer edge cases to test for
> Faster to market

Braking functions: Turning functions

- Auto braking for car ahead -> Already available
- Auto braking for cars ahead and to the side (Cross-
roads where other driver runs a red light)
- Pedestrian detection
Accelerating functions:
- Accelerate from rest when safe to do so (avoid rear-
end at junction)
- Accelerate on motorway to avoid side-swipe
- Cycle in blind spot avoidance
- Side-swipe avoidance
Combination functions:
- Active swerve - emergency brake, & simultaneous lane
change manoeuvre - [Only intervenes when driver is
about to do something unsafe, same functional safety
case as ABS today]

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Safe Practice - AV Control System
Control System Architecture is normally split into;
> ‘high level’ – cognitive driving intelligence, typically
performed by an ‘Autonomous Controller’ and,
> ‘low level’ – vehicle platform control, typically
performed by a conventional controller

Trajectory planning;
➢ Best practice is to send 2 paths simultaneously
➢ 1 Ideal trajectory
➢ Safe recovery trajectory

How does this fit with ADAS?

Safe practice - 2 choices of route, one failsafe always
broadcast, one planned navigation (normally AV, but
we are suggesting leave this to the driver at the
moment and replace in the next step

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 Replacing A Driver
Decision 1 Decision 2
What is your mood and how will this affect; How much grip is going to be available when its
- Urgency of journey time for the next control input
- Energy management

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 Known Market Trends
1. Today, 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected
to increase to 66 per cent by 2050.
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html

=> People taking shorter journeys (public transport),

=> but much more freight movement

2. IBM Forecast for No of devices connected to the Internet Of Things

https://www.slideshare.net/pbrody/intimate-things-how-wearables-are-changing-the-internet-of-things/2-Lots_and_lots_of_devices
2014 -> 10BN Connected devices
2020 -> 30BN Connected devices
2050 -> 100BN Connected devices

=> Much more data available about ‘everything’

=> Connected car applications will be more viable

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 Where Will We See Autonomy First?

1. Large number of edge cases (long development time for Level 5 Full AV cars), and consumer push-back
=> Safety functionality for Pass Car

2. Controlled environments (Level 4)

=> AV First & last mile pods,

3. Motorway environment is relatively sanitised (No bicycles, pedestrians, etc)

=> Freight vehicles moving from city depot to city depot using mainly motorways

4. everything else … mining trucks, tractors, forklifts, street sweepers, tiny vehicles of all sorts
=> By far the largest part of the market for Autonomous Systems
=> Do not carry passengers
=> Do not exceed grip limits
=> Low consequence if things ’get out of control’

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 Summary

• Customer expectations for passenger car AV’s are already at ‘Level 5’

• There are hurdles to achieving this, but they are all being worked on
• More than 5,000 miles without a disengagement is very impressive – but still not
‘Safe’ for passenger cars
• The simplest route is to provide the safety aspects first
• Whilst continuing to work on (Level 5) convenience
• We can expect a huge increase in autonomous inter-city freight transport as
populations become more urbanized
• Passenger cars are likely to be a small, but important part of the picture

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THANK YOU

Doug Cross, Founder

Tel. +44 (0) 7825240709
E: doug.cross@leadfoot.ltd

CONFIDENTIAL COPYRIGHT © 2018