Hands Off, Eyes Off, Brain Off

May 1, 2016

Stuart Birch

Auto industry legend Lee Iacocca once famously said, “Safety doesn’t sell.” Later, he was big enough to modify his stance and candidly admitted in an advertisement extolling the benefits of airbags, “Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”

Safety has become a “given” in vehicle design and technology, and not least because it is structured within the crash-proof confines of comprehensive legislation. Buyers assume new cars will be safe and getting safer, as OEMs design their products to meet the coveted 5-star rating. But with the prospect of comprehensive autonomous technology gaining acceptance, and major European OEMs and suppliers including Audi, Bosch, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo investing heavily in it, automotive safety is taking on a whole new dimension.

Andrew Miller, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Euro NCAP, told Automotive Engineering: “With the continuous advances in crash protection and the increasing number of active safety technologies available, such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB; also called automated emergency braking), today’s cars are, by any measurable standard, the safest ever, with improvements at every price point.”

Five-star crash-test performance ratings such as those established by Euro NCAP are essential in securing consumer confidence in a new model’s safety capability. But the rating seldom makes the headlines when a manufacturer announces a new model, even though the safety message is increasingly about sophisticated collision avoidance capability in addition to passive protection.

And manufacturers continue to work toward achieving an “accident-free” environment.

AEB makes an impact

Miller’s Euro NCAP role fits neatly with his parallel job as Chief Technical Officer of Thatcham Research, which achieves a strategic and tactical view of all aspects of safety. The U.K.-based company supplies the data that allows insurers to define the risk grouping for any new vehicle in the U.K. Miller stated that third-party injury claims against vehicles with AEB are up to 45% lower than for a control group of equivalent vehicles without the technology.

“Active safety technologies allow us to reduce the impact speeds of severe collisions and avoid many altogether,” he asserted.

In the U.K. alone, the effect of AEB is likely to reduce future compensation claims for whiplash injuries by over £0.5B ($706.2M) by 2025 and, over the same period, lead to an 18% reduction in the number of vehicles written-off as uneconomic to repair due to airbag deployment.

“This means there is a growing alignment between the priorities of vehicle manufacturers, insurers and consumers; they all benefit from safer vehicles,” said Miller.

Euro NCAP figures show a 38% overall reduction in real-world, rear-end crashes for vehicles fitted with AEB compared to a sample of equivalent vehicles without it. However, there remain many challenges, including the safe operation of autonomous vehicles in the company of those under manual control.

“Human operation introduces a wider range of possible scenarios for the autonomous control system to respond to, such as aggressive or illegal driving, and sudden or unexpected maneuvers,” warned Miller. “There are also reported instances of drivers misusing autonomous systems in potentially hazardous ways; either out of curiosity or for amusement.”

He said it is essential to look more deeply into cause and effect, and cited a study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) of a small number of crashes, none major, involving autonomous vehicles in California.

“In each case, the collision has been at low speed and the autonomous vehicle was not at fault,” Miller explained. “The issue appears to be driver inattention, or aggression, in the manually controlled vehicle leading to ‘rear-ending’ of the autonomous vehicle in front, particularly at intersections. This has implications for autonomous vehicles joining a moving traffic flow because the theoretically safest strategy, based on adherence to traffic laws and speed limits, can lead to delays and frustration for other drivers.”

Keeping secrets

Such a complex traffic landscape requires clear leadership and coherent policies if the growing availability of automated technologies is not to result in piecemeal development and unintentional consequences, he said: “Legislators tend to lag behind the technology, especially at the rate of progress common with electronics and software, while individual vehicle manufacturers are often wary of sharing too much core information with competitors.”

Thatcham Research has taken a significant role in steering the industry toward the standard fitment of AEB and ESC (electronic stability control). Through its contribution of research data to Euro NCAP and its development of robust testing protocols, it is now also strongly supporting the adoption of lateral control technologies.

Both Thatcham Research and Euro NCAP are clear that autonomous vehicles will evolve in incremental stages as consumer and regulator confidence levels grow, and they become proven and cost effective.

“The SAE’s own technology roadmap indicates six steps to autonomous control, from a zero level, via today’s intervention or assistance functions, through sequential stages of feet off the pedals, hands off the steering, eyes off the road, to finally ‘brain off’ the task of driving completely,” explained Miller’s colleague Matthew Avery, Director of Insurance Research at Thatcham.

The two work closely together researching the results of new technologies being introduced, including the likely effects of integration of autonomous vehicles into the existing traffic network. Avery noted that Europe and the U.S. mandated the fitment of ESC to passenger cars from 2012. Though capable of direct intervention to prevent loss of control of the vehicle, such systems do not replace the driver or relieve him or her of any of the tasks inherent in driving, he said.

Yet research data shows that a vehicle equipped with ESC has a 25% lower risk of being involved in the type of serious crash where a single vehicle leaves the road, Avery explained, “usually at high speed, and hits an obstacle such as a telegraph pole or tree.”

Current systems for active cruise control (ACC) and AEB are the first steps in monitoring the surrounding traffic to compensate for driver inattention or distraction. Higher levels of automation, such as valet parking with the driver outside the vehicle, are expected to be available by 2020. But the final step to fully autonomous vehicles is unlikely to be implemented on public highways before 2025, according to the experts.

Driver out of the loop

“The big challenge is the step change from ‘hands off’ to ‘eyes off’,” said Avery. “At that point, the driver is out of the loop even though the official definition is that he or she must be able to resume control quickly.”

This level of autonomy, for example, is likely to be legal on European roads as early as 2018, but debate continues regarding the issues it raises. In the U.S. it may arrive later. He explained that controversy arises because the safeguards required in a system where the driver is always ready to resume control are lower than for a system where the driver never needs to become involved.

“Some industry experts fear that drivers will treat any competent ‘eyes off’ system more like a ‘brain off’ system and abdicate all their driving responsibility to it, even though the manufacturer has not designed it for such use,” he asserted. “A true ‘brain off’ system requires aircraft levels of systems’ redundancy.”

The combination of autonomous braking and steering intervention, based on inputs from camera, radar and/or LiDAR systems, heralds improved safety of road users external to the vehicle.

“Camera technology is an essential element in the protection of vulnerable road users external to the vehicle, and is already becoming widespread through features initially introduced for driver convenience, such as parking assistance and cruise control,” said Miller. “The introduction of AEB has accelerated this trend, with 63% of the cars that scored a 5-stars Euro NCAP safety rating during the last quarter featuring some level of camera technology.”

Euro NCAP 2025 roadmap

The Euro NCAP roadmap for safety rating to 2020 was published in 2015; from January 2016 cars are being assessed for their ability to recognize and brake to avoid impact with pedestrians and the Thatcham team is now developing a test procedure for the avoidance of cyclists, planned for inclusion in the Euro NCAP test from 2018.

The next roadmap, for the period to 2025, is currently under discussion. Added Miller: “Without automated braking and lateral control technologies, it is virtually impossible for a vehicle to achieve a Euro NCAP 5-star safety rating today. In the years ahead, the contribution to safety made by autonomous systems will become even more indispensable; we will wonder how we ever managed without them!”

Mercedes-Benz’s new E-Class revealed at the 2016 Detroit auto show, took a significant step toward autonomous operation, offering Active Lane Change Assist, part of its DRIVE PILOT system.

When the driver activates the turn indicator for more than two seconds to change lanes, it steers the car into the adjacent lane. A Mercedes official stated that the vehicle will only change lanes autonomously if the sensors do not detect any vehicles in the relevant safety zone. It is inconsequential whether the car wants to change to the left lane for overtaking or wants to return to the right-hand lane.

A long-range radar system and a stereo camera monitor the area in front of the vehicle, while multi-mode radar sensors permanently check the area to the rear and sides. Both factor in the speed of detected vehicles in the vicinity, Mercedes experts said. The driver only needs to monitor the lane change.

The Federal Motor Vehicle and Transport Authority in Germany has given provisional approval for Active Lane Change Assist. Application is being made for pan-European approval.

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