The future of autonomous driving will not only offer a completely new driving experience, it will also change the entire automotive industry.
Over 1.2 billion people spend more than 50 minutes a day in their cars – a large portion of that time, however, is spent in traffic jams. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could take your hands off the steering wheel during this time and get on with other things? This dream became reality in 2017: this year has seen the presentation of the world’s first production cars to be developed for highly automated driving. Vehicles can now take over driving functions such as parking or autonomously accelerating and braking in traffic jams.
Sharp eye for the surroundings
A basic requirement for automated driving is the ability to reliably perceive vehicle surroundings and evaluate them accurately on the fly. “In order for the system to acquire this information step-by-step, a range of sensors such as radars, cameras, and surround view systems are needed. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the vehicle’s surroundings which is as good as or better than a person’s own understanding. More range, more sensors, and the combination of acquired data with powerful computer systems will help to sharpen the view and is the key to achieving a consistent view of our surroundings,” says Karl Haupt, Head of Continental’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit.
British car-maker Jaguar Land Rover has taken this a step further. “We don’t want to limit future highly automated and fully autonomous technologies to tarmac,” says Tony Harper, Head of Research, Jaguar Land Rover. “When the driver turns off the road, we want this support and assistance to continue. In the future, if you enjoy the benefits of autonomous lane-keeping on a motorway at the start of your journey, we want to ensure you can use this all the way to your destination, even if this is via a rough track or gravel road.” For this purpose, Jaguar Land Rover has combined cameras, ultrasound, radar and lidar sensors in a concept vehicle. These systems not only enable a 360-degree view of the car’s surroundings, but are so highly developed that they can determine surface properties down to the dimension of a tyre width – even in rain or snow. Ultrasonic sensors can also detect the surface conditions within a range of up to five metres so that the vehicle can automatically adjust its traction and driving behaviour when switching from tarmac to snow or from grass to sand.
The car comes to the driver
The sensor system is only one part of the solution; the other is having the intelligence to generate commands from the data collected. This requires cars to be equipped with high-performance control units. The Audi A8 revealed in July 2017, for example, features a central driver assistance controller with deep-learning-based software which constantly froms an image of the surroundings from the sensor data during piloted driving. Daimler is also pushing to develop the software behind fully automated and driverless driving. In April 2017, the manufacturer entered into a development agreement with Bosch to bring fully automated and driverless driving to urban roads by the beginning of the next decade. The objective is to work together to develop software and algorithms for an autonomous driving system. The idea behind this thinking is that the car will come to the driver and not the other way around. Users will be able to conveniently order an automated shared car or robot taxi via their smartphone. The vehicle will then make its way autonomously to the user. “The car as we know it will soon be history,” says Dr Volkmar Denner, Chairman of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch. “Today you use the Internet to book a hotel room; in the future, you’ll arrange your mobility online as well.”
An autonomous fleet can effectively replace a much larger number of private vehicles.
Tapping into new business areas
Car-sharing is one of the big advantages of autonomous cars. David Alexander, Senior Research Analyst with Navigant Research: “Studies have shown that an autonomous fleet can effectively replace a much larger number of private vehicles in a city centre, which represents both an opportunity and a challenge for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).” On the one hand, according to Navigant, 120 million autonomous cars will be sold between 2020 and 2035. On the other hand, automobile manufacturing is expected to reach its zenith and then decline because of shared cars. Therefore, automotive manufacturers should adapt their business models accordingly and sell additional value-added services, for example. “The more popular autonomous driving becomes, the greater the demand by users for services to meaningfully utilise the time freed up in the car,” concludes Ralf Gaydoul, Partner and Head of the Automotive Center at Horváth & Partners Management Consultants. “If the values were to be added up across all categories of need, this would give rise to a monthly amount of well in excess of 100 euros per driver.” Together with the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), Gaydoul has studied the willingness of motorists to pay for such services: according to the study, three-quarters of those surveyed would pay for value-added services. The willingness to pay for services is at its highest in relation to communication and productivity. “These services are the most heavily in demand in all three countries examined, though with different variations,” says Dr Jennifer Dungs, Head of the Mobility and Urban System Design Division at the Fraunhofer IAO. “For example, interest in in-car social media services is much higher in Japan than here in Germany (64 per cent compared with 23 per cent).”