Abstract— This paper presents the concept ofa highly automated vehicle which allows both co-operation and adaption with ahuman driver. Enabling highly automated driving has been alasting endeavor in traffic research. The concept, referred to as legal safety,is illustrated for highly automated driving on highways with distance keeping,intelligent speed adaptation, and lane-changing functionalities. The cluster isconcerned with the role of the road environment in connection with theintroduction of automated driving; in addition to the structuralinfrastructure, this also includes the transport and information-basedinfrastructure as well as other influences such as weather.
Estimating theimpact of automated driving on road safety and on traffic and environmental efficiencyis also extremely important, as is the possible distribution of roles in thecooperative infrastructure and vehicle network. This system is embedded insocial values and norms, political and economic objectives, legal stipulationsand agreements as well as in the everyday practices of road users.Index Terms—Introduction,Human-vehicle Interface, Safety and Validation, Road Infrastructure andtraffic, Social aspects xxxx-xxxx/0x/$xx.00 © 200x IEEE Published by the IEEE Computer Society —————————— u ——————————1 Introduction T HIS indroducesto some of the topics in highly Automated Driving.
Vehicle automation isproposed as on e of the solutions which will make transport easy, safe, morecomfortable and more environment friendly. It is divided into many sub groupswhich include safety, eco friendly, different echnological aspects such asRadars, Sensors. But mainly sub divided into four groups which have beendescribed as clusters, namely the Human-Machine interface, the area of functionalvalidation (function, safety, validation cluster), the aspects of roadinfrastructure and traffic and social aspects. Automated Driving isnot a new phenomenon. Rather, environment sensing systems are being developedfor advanced driver assistance. The already available technologies such asAdaptive Cruise Control or Lane Departure warning systems are some of thedegrees of automation of continuously automating functions.
The followingparagraphs explain the four topic clusters:At the human-machine interface particular questions arise in connectionwith the possibility of transferring control back to the driver and on thecontinuous awareness of the system status.Whole new requirements arise in the area of function, safety andvalidation. Until now the driver has permanently conducted parallel tasks, sothat the systems available have trusted that the driver is immediatelyavailable for corrective intervention and to take over from mechanical control.The area of road infrastructure and traffic can firstly be establishedthat vehicle automation will impact all road categories in the long term.
Issues concerning requirements on vehicle and infrastructure due to the higherspeeds driven or which implement even higher levels of automation.Social aspects are a high-ranking factor when considering the need forresearch. Accordingly, individual issues – such as ethical issues – areaddressed in different sections. 2 Human-Machine Interface2.
1 DriverStatesFundamentalresearch and experience from plant and flight automation show that high degreesof automation lead to changes in concentration and vigilance. In view of thefact that drivers continue to play an important role despite high automation atleast in the transition to a different degree of automation, knowledge of theavailability is of great importance. Even in partially automated systems, thestate of the driver plays an important role. It must be ensured that drivers goabout their continuous monitoring task within the set framework. With respectto motion sickness, it would at least be desirable to consider the direction ofview before and during manoeuvres. A high temporal priority is therefore to beplaced on the development of technologies to measure the readiness to resumecontrol; the potential of existing technologies to objectively evaluate thereadiness to resume control should be estimated in order to keep drivers in orbring them back to the control loop. The conditions which must be satisfied fordrivers to basically resume control over highly automated functions must alsobe assessed.
2.2Interaction between InterfacesTechnologicaldevelopment promises extensive functionalities. The significance of thehuman-machine interface will not diminish (see aviation, for example) becausethe requisite system transparency and mode awareness and faultless and fastinteraction will become considerably more important. Therefore, both conceptsfor transferring the driving task to the vehicle and returning it to the drivermust be investigated so that drivers may resume control over highly automatedfunctions.2.3 NonDriving StatesThe increase in automation permits drivers toengage in non-driving activities which could not be conducted parallel tomanual driving or partial automation.
The properties of auxiliary activitiesmust therefore be investigated which are suitable for this and may evenpositiviely influence the readiness to resume control. It would be desirable to develop amanufacturer-independent specification of prototypical standardised auxiliarytasks for research situations. Auxiliary activities which do not depend on thevehicle must be also be considered (for example, reading a book,eating/drinking, devices not interconnected with the vehicle, so-called”nomadic devices”).
3 Function, Safety, ValidationThe focusof the function, safety and validation cluster is on the validation ofautomated driving functions. Current validationmethods rely on intensive driving trials, and existing safety concepts dependon people as the fall-back level. If the human is temporarily or completelyabsent as overseer, failure probabilities for the automation systems are neededwhich can no longer be validated under commercially acceptable conditions inthe driving trial.
The value systemof an automated vehicle becomes particularly clear in dilemma situations whenan accident is certain to occur and it is necessary to weigh up which road usershould benefit or be disadvantaged by influencing the accident events. Greatefforts must be continued to conduct research into technologies, algorithms andmethods for the safe automation of driving functions and bring these to marketmaturity.Assistance systemshave become possible through intensive research and development work into the environmentsensor system, actuators and suitable algorithms for machine cognition ,decision making and carrying out actions.
Germany today takes the leadingposition in the area of advanced driver assistance systems due to rightinvestment by the manufacturers in good time.The developmentand validation of highly and fully automated vehicles is a great technologicaland social challenge which requires the joining of many forces.4 RoadInfrastructure and TrafficInaddition to the structural infrastructure, that include the transport andinformation based infrastructure as well as other influences such as weather.Furthermore, the effects on road safety, on traffic and environmentalefficiency have to be considered. The information based infrastructurecontains the data provided for automated driving and all mechanisms forgenerating and updating these data, for data transmission and bi-directionalcommunication. Now we address the traffic issues.
Theword traffic comes from the Arabic ‘traffaqa’ which means “slowly walking alongtogether”. Traffic is complex because of the diversity of it’s participants andinfrastructure. Traffic rules have been developed to promote traffic safety andefficiency. The traffic flow could be modelled as onecondition for determining the effects of automated driving. If future drivingsystems are to begin driving autonomously, it is necessary we have aninfrastructure that allows automated vehicle to share with human drivers. A distantfuturewhere both automated and non automated vehicles co-exist needs to betaken into consideration. The first alternative is to exclusively assign a partof existing infrastructure to autonomous driving.
Another alternative is tocreate an entirely separated infrastructure for automated vehicles. Both thealternates would require a large cost. In order to assess the traffic flow underthe new conditions and to establish possible (macro) economic potential, it isnecessary to examine how previous traffic models could be adapted to theequipment rates for automated vehicles. 5 Social AspectsAll roadusers are affected by the introduction of highly and fully automated vehicles.A high degree of acceptance at a societal level and which goes beyond pure useracceptance is the prerequisite for the successful implementation of the newvehicles.
This applies to vehicles used in passenger transport and commercialtransport. In order tobe able to estimate the possible effects of introducing highly and fullyautomated vehicles as reliably as possible, concepts for implementation must bedeveloped early on and tested in scenarios. Specific aspects concern vehiclecontrol, legal issues, vehicle operation, infrastructures and the form ofinterfaces with other modes of transport. Theautomation of light commercial vehicles and trucks as part of the change to ahighly and fully automated system must also be taken into consideration.
The highlyand fully automated vehicle produces data and needs data just to guaranteepermanent technical safety. Increasednetworking creates possibilities for integrating highly and fully automatedvehicles in the transport system in a novel way, for example as part of thedevelopment of “new mobility concepts”.
