SAE Update - May 2022 - 21

Navigating the language
of vehicle autonomy
STANDARDS & COMMITTEES
difference between driver assistance and
autonomous driving, and we don't expect
them to.' "
" That sort of attitude really galvanized
us at PAVE, because it shows we have not
done enough to explain why this
distinction matters, " Niedermeyer said. " I
think it's really easy for people outside of
industry to ask, 'Why are you nerds
quibbling over some words that kind of all
sound the same to us. What's the big
deal?' I think that we still have some
progress to make on what's the big-deal
part, as well as clarifying the distinction
itself. "
Defining the autonomous convention is
an ongoing challenge for engineers is a
taxonomy that keeps up with the torrid
pace of technology advancement. More so
than many projects for a standards
organization, it's required near constant
iteration for J3016. " The initial publication
of J3016 occurred in 2014, and last year we
published the fourth version of the
document, " Nicols stated. " Updating every
several years might not sound really fast,
but in the standards world, I would say
that that is fairly rapid updating that
speaks to how it is a living document. "
Although the public quickly attached
itself to the term " autonomous, " that has
certainly not been the case in engineering
circles. " We have the word 'autonomous'
being a deprecated term, " Nicols detailed.
" Right from day one in J3016, using that
term is not appropriate from our
UPDATE
engineering perspective. I think it's been
more reflective of a common use among
the public that aren't involved directly
with automation itself... used more
casually or colloquially. "
Nicols noted that within engineering
circles, distinguishing among terms is
something well understood. " Those of us
working specifically around automation
recognize that using the term autonomous
can be misleading and has its own
connotation, " he said. " If you describe
them as autonomous, they could be
understood as having their own decisionmaking
process, almost like a selfgovernance.
That really is not appropriate
because these are automated systems
currently being developed. Even those not
introduced to market yet are programmed.
They are systems that follow an
algorithm. "
" This is not a science fiction type of
device. It is not that something has been
created to be used on a vehicle that
basically has its own direction on what it
wants to do, " Nicols emphasized. " You
could argue that sometime in the distant
future these vehicles would operate
literally on their own accord, but that's
certainly not the case currently. It's
because of that connotation we think that
this is not an appropriate term - the term
autonomous - to use for the technologies
being currently developed. " n
A longer version of this previously published SAE article
by editor Paul Seredynski can be found here.
May 2022
21
https://www.sae.org/news/2022/03/navigating-the-language-of-vehicle-autonomy
SAE Update - May 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAE Update - May 2022
