1.1.5 Automated Vehicle Control
While still quite far in the future, the ultimate in “driving convenience” for many would be the proverbial “car that drives itself.” While the joy of driving is unmatched on a winding mountain road on a sunny day, daily driving is an experience that typically fatigues, frustrates, and frazzles us as drivers. To have the alternative of handing control of the vehicle over to a trustworthy technology agent is quite attractive. Prototype vehicles of this type have been developed and demonstrated, and professionals knowledgeable in automotive technology generally agree that self-driving cars are inevitable some time within the next few decades.
An early form of automated vehicle control likely to be very popular is low-speed automation (LSA). This application simply combines full-function low-speed ACC with full hands-off lane keeping to completely take care of the driving task in congested traffic. Conceptually, the system would alert the driver to resume control of the vehicle when the traffic clears and speeds increase to normal. Various forms of LSA are currently in the R&D stage.
1.2 Safety Systems
As noted in Chapter 2, traffic fatalities range into the tens of thousands in developed countries and the numbers of crashes are in the millions. Given the massive societal costs, governments are highly motivated to promote active safety systems for crash avoidance.
Further, based on experience with airbag systems, it has been well established that “safety sells” in the automotive showroom, and therefore automotive manufacturers have a good business case for offering active safety systems on new cars.