Elisabeth Uhlemann

Connected Vehicles

Active Safety Vehicles Evolving Toward Automated Driving

Towards autonomous vehicles

Autonomous dump trucks

Suncor Energy will try Komatsu’s
Autonomous Haulage System (AHS)
in the mining industry in northern
Canada. Each autonomous dump
truck is equipped with vehicle con-
trollers, a high-precision global posi-
tioning system (GPS), an obstacle
detection system, and a wireless net-
work system. These features allow
the dump truck to safely operate
though a complex load, haul, and
dump cycle and to integrate with the
dozers, loaders, and shovels that are
also part of the autonomous system.
Komatsu claims that AHS reduces the
number of drivers working in hostile Figure 1  The Jaguar Land Rover showcases a remote-controlled Range Rover Sport,
and remote conditions, increases controlled by the driver on a smartphone outside of the vehicle. (Photo courtesy of Jaguar.)

safety on mine sites, reduces operat-

ing costs, increases productivity and
efficiency, and reduces fuel consump-
tion and emissions.
Remote-Controlled Range Rover
Jaguar Land Rover has revealed
some of the prototype technologies
that its U.K.-based research team is
developing to deliver autonomous
driving in the future. A remote-con-
trolled Range Rover sport research
vehicle demonstrates how a driver
could drive the vehicle from outside
the car via their smartphone. The
smartphone app includes control of
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MVT.2015.2481118
Date of publication: 7 December 2015
steering, the accelerator, brakes, and
changing from high to low range.
This would allow the driver to walk
alongside the car, at a maximum
speed of 4 mi/h (6.4 km/h), to
maneuver the car out of challenging
situations safely or even to negotiate
difficult off-road terrain. The driver
could use the smartphone to reverse
the car out of a parking space if
someone has parked too close for
them to open the door (Figure 1).
The remote control function will
only operate if the user is within 10
m of the car and if the smart key can
be detected. The system will stop
the vehicle if the driver moves out of
range or gets too close.
Jaguar Land Rover’s “Multi-Point
Turn” Range Rover Sport is capable
of autonomously ma neuvering
through 180° to turn the car on the
road and point the car in the oppo-
site direction. This autonomous ve-
hicle could extricate itself from many
difficult situations, such as dead-end
roads or congested car parks, as
well as from performing many driv-
ers’ least favorite maneuver—the
three-point turn in a busy street or
car park. The system uses sensors to
assess available space and to avoid
pedestrians, vehicles, and other ob-
jects. The system takes over gear
selection, steering, braking, and ac-
celeration to make as many forward

20 ||| IEEE vehicular technology magazine | december 2015

and backward movements as neces-
sary to achieve the maneuver.
Autonomous Vehicle Technology
Transitions to Advanced
Engineering at Ford
Autonomous vehicle technology is
another step closer to production at
Ford, moving from a research effort
to an advanced engineering pro-
gram. The Ford Research and Inno-
vation Center in Palo Alto is working
on the Ford Smart Mobility plan,
which aims to take the company to
the next level in connectivity, mobili-
ty, autonomous vehicles, customer
experience, and big data. With the
transition to advanced engineering,
autonomous driving technology
enters the second of three phases in
the process of bringing the feature to
the market. As an advanced engi-
neering program, the team is now
working to make the required sens-
ing and computing technology feasi-
ble for production while it continues
to test and refine algorithms. Driver-
assist features are part of the build-
ing blocks for increasingly capable
semiautonomous technology, as
Ford enhances the sensors, algo-
rithms, and actuators in vehicles to
create a new fully automated driving
technology.
Ford has also been working to
extend connectivity innovations to
wearable technology. The MyFord
Mobile application, already avail-
able for smartphones and coming
soon to smartwatches, will provide
customers the ability to check the
driving range and battery charge
for their plug-in hybrid or electric
vehicle quickly from their wrists
before they leave on a trip. The
application will even allow them
to find the location where they
last parked.
The smartphone app includes control of steering,
the accelerator, brakes, and changing from
high to low range.
British Broadcasting Corporation.
Baidu is the most popular search
engine in China and likely aims to
challenge its rival Google with an
early production date of a self-driving
car, as Google announced that its pro-
totypes started driving on public
roads in June 2015.
Cooperative ITS
Pothole Detection in the Cloud
Jaguar Land Rover is researching a
new connected car technology that
will allow a vehicle to identify the
location and severity of potholes, bro-
ken drains, and manhole covers and
then share this data in real time via
the cloud with other vehicles and
road authorities to help them priori-
tize repairs (Figure 2). If a car can
receive a warning from another vehi-
cle about severe potholes or broken
manholes ahead, then drivers would
be able to slow down and avoid the
danger—or the car could adjust sus-
pension settings to reduce the impact
and smooth the ride. This could help
reduce the potential for punctures,
wheel and vehicle damage, and road
accidents. The cost of vehicle damage
caused by potholes in the United
Kingdom is estimated at £2.8 billion
every year. Investigations on how Jag-
uar Land Rover’s Pothole Alert sys-
tem could supply data in real time
from thousands of connected cars
across the road network are also
being conducted. This could give a
very accurate minute-by-minute pic-
ture of damage to road surfaces, man-
holes, and drains in real time. The
project will also investigate whether
Jaguar Land Rover’s experimental
camera could take an image of the
pothole or damaged manhole and
share this with the road authorities
along with the GPS location.
New Test Track for Connected
Vehicles Opened
The University of Michigan has
opened Mcity, the world’s first con-
trolled environment specifically

Baidu to Produce Self-Driving Car

The Chinese search engine Baidu
says it will produce a self-driving car
by the end of 2015. The news was
Figure 2  The Jaguar Land Rover researchers are working to develop a technology to share
originally reported by TechWeb in data with other cars via the cloud so that all drivers may get a warning about dangerous
Chinese and then in English by the potholes. (Image courtesy of Jaguar.)

december 2015 | IEEE vehicular technology magazine ||| 21


The Automatic Developer Platform makes it easy for
developers to build and distribute car apps powered
by the data available in cars.
designed to test the potential of con-
nected and automated vehicle tech-
nologies that will lead the way to
mass-market driverless cars. Mcity is
a 32-acre, simulated urban and subur-
ban environment (Figure 3) that
includes a network of roads with
intersections, traffic signs and sig-
nals, streetlights, building facades,
sidewalks, and construction obsta-
Figure 3  Mcity is a 32-acre simulated urban and suburban environment. (Photo courtesy
of the University of Michigan.)
cles (Figure 4). It is designed to sup-
port rigorous repeatable testing of
new technologies before they are
tried out on public streets and high-
ways. In particular, Mcity allows
researchers to simulate the environ-
ments where connected and automat-
ed vehicles will be challenged most.
Even seemingly minor details a vehi-
cle might encounter in urban and
suburban settings have been incorpo-
rated into Mcity, such as road signs
defaced by graffiti and faded lane
markings. The types of technologies
that will be tested at the facility
include connected technologies—
vehicles talking to other vehicles or
to the infrastructure, commonly
known as V2X—and various levels of
automation all the way up to fully
autonomous or driverless vehicles.
Finnish Drivers to Voluntarily Share
Notifications About Safety Hazards
The mapping company Here Maps has
been selected by Finnish traffic agen-
cies to lead a pilot project to enable
vehicles to communicate safety haz-
ards to other cars on the road. The
pilot, which will start in 2016, intends
to assess the capability of current and
emerging mobile networks and loca-
tion cloud technologies to support the
timely communication of critical safe-
ty information, such as black ice or an
animal on the road, sudden traffic
buildup, or an accident. In this pilot,
drivers will voluntarily share notifica-
tions about safety hazards and chang-
ing road conditions initially via a
smartphone. The aim, however, is that
this architecture would later also sup-
port low-latency communication via a
cloud of data generated by a vehicle’s
on-board sensors and the surrounding
road infrastructure to other vehicles
and smart devices on the road. Here
Maps was asked by the Finnish Trans-
port Agency and Trafi, the Finnish
Transport Safety Agency, to lead the
pilot, called Coop, and will work with
traffic information management ser-
vice company Infotripla in implement-
ing it. The project will be the first to
implement a road hazard warning
messaging system as described
in the intelligent transport system
(ITS) directive set out by the Europe-
an Union.

Real-Time Data from Connected

Vehicles to Report Road Conditions
and Alert Others
Figure 4  Mcity includes a network of roads with intersections, traffic signs,
streetlights, building facades, sidewalks, and construction obstacles. (Photo courtesy of the Even with recent innovations in steer-
University of Michigan.) ing, traction, and braking systems,

22 ||| IEEE vehicular technology magazine | december 2015

drivers still regularly face dangerous
weather-related road conditions.
INRIX has now announced INRIX Road
Weather, which provides critical infor-
mation on road conditions, including
updated alerts every 15  min. Unlike
traditional weather services, INRIX
Road Weather provides information
on the roads themselves, including the
type of precipitation, surface condi-
tions, and visibility, among others. It is
the first system to use real-time data
from connected vehicles to report
road conditions and alert other driv-
ers of potentially dangerous situa-
tions. The road condition information
collected by INRIX is analyzed and
transmitted to other vehicles and
mobile applications giving drivers
important and timely information on
whether they should adjust their route
or driving behavior well ahead of the
problem. INRIX Road Weather can also
help public transportation and road
The road condition information collected by INRIX
is analyzed and transmitted to other vehicles and
mobile applications.
maintenance agencies to be more effi-
cient when applying resources. In
addition, it can assist emergency ser-
vice personnel to manage traffic flow
before an accident occurs. Road
Weather is available to automotive
and enterprise customers in North
America and Europe.
Internet of Things
Automatic Launched Smart
Driving Assistant
The San Francisco-based company
Automatic launched its Automatic
App Gallery, an app store and an
open development platform for
car  apps. By pairing Automatic’s
connected car adapter and apps for
iPhone, Android, and the web, Auto-
matic claims that they can turn
almost any car into a connected car.
The Automatic App Gallery features
over 20 third-party apps, and the
Automatic car adapter enables third-
party Bluetooth streaming apps that
display data from the car’s on-board
computer in real time. The Automat-
ic Developer Platform makes it easy
for developers to build and distrib-
ute car apps powered by the data
available in cars. Therefore, Auto-
matic becomes a Smart Driving
Assistant that can save the driver
money on gas, diagnose engine trou-
ble, detect accidents, and send emer-
gency responses.


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