Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2022 - 26

Standards
Sharath Reddy,
Magna's senior
VP of Electronics,
said
" driver in the
loop " provides
a very clear
distinction for
its development
teams.
Nikhil Gupta,
Magna's senior
engineering
director for
ADAS features,
explained that
even " simple "
features such
as automated
lane- change can
involve significant
compute
assets depending
on the operational
design domain
(ODD).
" As we get into more feature content, especially
in this Level-2, Level-3 area, that's where the industry
is going very, very fast right now, " Reddy noted. " We're
getting into more features which are more automated,
but when you look at autonomous features, we're
looking into limited cases. These are shuttles, for
example, on dedicated lanes. It's a completely different
use case from our perspective. "
For autonomous, it's not having the driver in the
loop, or the potential for the driver to take over, emphasized
Nikhil Gupta, Magna's senior engineering director
for ADAS features. " Whereas for automated and
assisted, basically the driver is in absolute control. The
systems may be helping you a bit, be it lane centering,
be it adaptive cruise control, but the driver is eventually
in control, " he said. " The driver is in the loop and can
take over the system anytime the system so determines. "
Some systems currently in production appear to
offer full self-driving capability, " and hence the line
between automated or assisted and autonomous gets
blurred, " Gupta noted. " But autonomous really means
the driver does not have to be in the loop. Whereas for
automated, no matter if the car is driving itself for a
while, eventually the responsibility as well as the onus
of control lies with the driver. "
Communicating the message
The application of automated technology will depend
on where it is expected to operate, known as an operational
design domain (ODD) such as a " highways
only " feature. But much complexity remains even
within specific ODDs. " Take a simple example of
automated lane change, " Gupta offered. " There's a big
difference, especially if you're driving in Germany
on the autobahn. The speeds may require you to add
26 July 2022
additional sensors to support a feature like that and
may also require additional processing and compute
capability to make sure they can fuse all the sensors
and make the right decisions. "
" But drivers don't understand that, " he asserted.
" They don't know what's under the hood, how many
controllers they're running, what happens if the
system will fail and will it stop in the middle of the lane
or go to a safe spot on the road shoulder. Those things
are nuances, but those nuances are what differentiates
assisted or automated system from autonomous
systems. And while today from a user experience, the
systems are driving themselves, they're nowhere close
to being autonomous. "
" We all have a responsibility in the industry right
now, " Reddy noted. " Yourself in the press, we as Tier 1s,
the OEMs, how we communicate this to the consumer
buying the car. Because if you use some of the easy
terms like 'self-driving car,' people can misinterpret
what that feature means and cause themselves trouble,
or liabilities for themselves or for the OEM, " Reddy
explained. " I think it's very important for us to stick
to the SAE standards " in defining the different levels.
Toyota's Nichols added, " I would speculate that
part of the difficulty that the broader public might have
in understanding the [SAE] levels is they might tend
to think in terms of either a system does everything
automatically by itself, or I as a human need to operate
the vehicle, " he noted. " Even with the current systems
that are available on the market, there is a shared role
between what the automated system does and what a
driver still needs to do. I think that's probably an area
where we can work on explaining that situation more
clearly to everyone. You cannot buy a self-driving
vehicle today. There is no such thing. " ■
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING
Magna
Magna
Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - July 2022
