Highly Automated Driving, not just a buzz

By Jan-Maarten de Vries, TomTom

Automated driving is a very hot topic in the industry and we have been talking about driverless cars for some years now. With it comes the biggest paradigm shift in the automotive industry since we moved from powered by horses to “horsepower” more than 100 years ago. The driver will become a (co-)passenger and the driving task will be transferred to machines.

Automated driving will disrupt the automotive industry as we know it in ways we have not seen before and cannot even completely conceive today. The automated driving arena will soon become a complex ecosystem of many different cross-industry players and technologies. End-users will benefit from increased safety, comfort and fuel efficiency while the impact on society will be equally as big; mobility will become accessible to all and traffic and parking problems will be greatly reduced.

At the same time there are still some barriers to overcome, among others around safety and liability – do computers indeed drive safer than humans and who is responsible in case an accident does occur? Legislation will need to be adjusted and what about user adoption – people can save time but where is the fun?

Today, cars are already becoming more and more automated. Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) features are increasingly being introduced in new cars. While some ADAS applications rely on sensors only, many are now taken to the next level by using very detailed, up-to-date and richly attributed map and/or highly accurate traffic information. Advanced intelligent cruise control, upcoming curve alerts and jam tail warnings are just a few examples.

As the next steps are taken towards Highly Automated Driving, many more technology components come into play. Multiple redundancies between these systems are needed to create solid and safe HAD systems.

Most people in the industry recognize that a highly accurate, detailed and up-to-date map and accurate travel services are key products to bring HAD to reality. They allow the car to see beyond the reach of its sensors.

Our role in automated driving is to help our partners (car makers and system vendors) developing vehicles capable of answering to these simple yet complicated questions: (i) where exactly is the vehicle located? An HAD map provides highly detailed road context and allows precise positioning of the vehicle with decimetre precision; (ii) What lies ahead? Connected services such as traffic and advanced weather services provide live road status beyond the reach of vehicle sensors; (iii) Where can the car go? Navigation software and eHorizon calculate the most probable paths and guide the vehicle to its destination. Finally, based on driver speed profiles and local point speeds, comfortable speeds need to be identified so the driver can reach their destination in the driving style he or she likes. A big challenge for map makers will be to keep the HAD maps up-to-date. Automated vehicles will heavily rely on fresh maps as roads change all the time. It is therefore crucial to add near real-time car sensor data to the map making process and to have access to a mapping platform that can make releases on a continuous basis. Years of experience in processing data helps a great deal in making this happen.

Many different parties will be involved in making HAD a reality. Next to car makers and Tier1s who can normally push for innovations, there is a big dependency on governments worldwide. Allowing self-driving cars on the same road as normal cars is a big step. We believe that eventually, as technology matures, everyone will agree that automated driving technology will be safer than humans, driving tasks will progressively be transferred to machines and adoption of HAD systems will increase. In the meantime every test drive is bringing us closer to the future.