Tomorrow’s Mobility

Sustainable Technologies for the automotive sector

Week 4 – Session 2 – Autonomous Vehicle Overview

Guillaume Bresson

Introduction

I- Autonomous vehicle - definition

II- How autonomous vehicles work
III- Levels of automated driving

Conclusion

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Introduction
This lesson will discuss autonomous vehicles: What they are, how they work, and how the levels of
automated driving are defined.

I- Autonomous vehicle - definition

What is an autonomous vehicle? Simply put, it is a vehicle able to drive without human involvement
in real traffic conditions. As seen in the last lesson, intelligent transportation systems, or ITS, are
often mentioned when talking about autonomous driving. Intelligent Transportation Systems
integrate the fact that vehicles can communicate information between them, with the
infrastructure or with pedestrians for instance. It can be easily understood that decision-making is
at the heart of what can be considered as an autonomous system. These decisions are based on
sensory inputs. They are interpreted by the system itself and considered regarding the goal given by
a human operator.
In autonomous driving, the goal given by a human is to reach a destination while respecting the
road safety rules. To do so, the vehicle needs to perceive its environment, analyze the information,
decide what is relevant, plan what should be done in the coming seconds and take actions by
converting the plan into a set of control inputs. All of this, needs to be understood by the vehicle:
steering, accelerating and braking.
Terminology

Autonomous vehicle What is an autonomous system?

Vehicle capable of driving in total
autonomy in real traffic without human
Own ability of a system without crew to
intervention
sense, perceive, analyze, communicate,
Intelligent transport plan, take decisions and act so as to fulfill
Autonomous transportation means any given mission by a human operator
(vehicles, shuttles, etc.) connected
between themselves and to the
infrastructure

PERCEIVE, ANALYZE, PLAN, ACT

II- How autonomous vehicles work

The figure below represents how an autonomous vehicle works. Grey boxes at the bottom are
sensors. They provide information about the environment and the vehicle itself to the perception
layer. However, interpreting everything only from sensors data has proven to be quite a difficult
task. This is why we use maps containing information previously gathered. With maps, the
perception task is easier for the vehicle. For instance, if the system knows where traffic lights are
located in cities, it becomes much easier to detect them.
So, the goal of this perception layer is to extract relevant information. The information comes from:
-the vehicle itself: like position, speed, etc.
-the road: how many lanes there are, their width, etc.

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-surrounding obstacles: other vehicles, pedestrians, bikes or something blocking the road
-the environment: traffic signs, the weather, etc.

Autonomous vehicle representation

Put together, all this information is called the local dynamic map of the vehicle. This local dynamic
map will evolve through time and can be shared with other vehicles to improve their anticipation
capabilities.
Then, all this information is sent to the planning modules that are displayed in dark green. At his
point, these modules decide the trajectory and the general behavior of the vehicle. The decisions
are converted in control inputs for the car making sure the planned trajectory is followed as
accurately and as smoothly as possible.
On the left side of the figure, the safety layer can be seen. Indeed, the safety layer is present in
every block of the chain to ensure that everything is correctly interpreted. Most of the time a meta
safe supervisor crosses several data sources and evaluates that the decisions taken are correct and
practicable.

III- Levels of automated driving

When talking about autonomous driving, the term “level of automation” is often used.
Most of the time, when talking about levels of automation, people refer to the classification coming
from SAE international, an organization of the automotive field mainly.
6 levels are defined based on 4 criteria:
 First, who is performing the driving action - human or machine? This can be defined by the
terms “hands on”/”hands off”.
 Next, who is monitoring the driving environment - human or machine? It’s also called “eyes
on”/”eyes off”.
 Then, who is reacting when the system falls out of its operating domain - human or
machine? (“mind on”/”mind off”)
 At last, can the vehicle be autonomous everywhere, or is it restrained to some use cases?

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 Levels of automation

The single levels can be defined in detail as follows:

 Level 0 is a classical car. Everything is done by human drivers.
Level 0

 In level 1, the control of the vehicle is shared between the machine and the driver. These
systems are well known today. In here, the longitudinal or lateral control of the vehicle is
handled by the car itself while the other one is handled by the driver. The longitudinal
control allows the vehicle to adapt its speed, taking into account other vehicles. An example
fulfilling this function is the adaptive cruise control, where the vehicles are detected, most
of the time, with a radar sensor. With adaptive cruise control, the human driver still has to
perform steering actions. Handling the lateral control means the vehicle can maintain itself
automatically in its lane. One example is the lane keeping assist where the lane markings are
detected, most of the time, using an embedded camera. With lane keeping assist, the driver
still has to accelerate or brake.

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 Level 1

 In level 2, the longitudinal AND the lateral control tasks are performed by the vehicle.
Basically, it means using adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist together. However,
in this level, like in the previous one, the driver has to constantly monitor the road and take
back the control of the vehicle if anything happens.
Level 2
Driving handled by the vehicle,
surveillance by the driver

 In level 3, the driving and the surveillance of the environment are carried out by the vehicle.
However, the vehicle will ask the driver to take control when the situation is beyond the
performance limits of the system. Let’s take the example of a traffic jam. The vehicle can
handle the traffic jam all by itself. When getting out of the traffic jam, the speed increases.
The system does not know how to handle the situation coming next, so it will ask the driver
to take back the steering wheel. This level brings up many questions related to human
factors. What is the proper warning time? How much time ahead must the driver be warned
until he has to take back the control of the car? What tasks have an impact on taking back

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 control? Is there any effect of long-time technology appropriation? How do we bring back
the driver in the loop? What information should be communicated to the driver to quickly
assess the situation? Beyond all these questions, there can also be a technical feasibility
problem because some events are difficult or even impossible to anticipate. Some car
manufacturers are skipping this level and going directly to the level 4, like Ford for instance.
Level 3
Driving and surveillance handled by the vehicle
• Resume control to the driver when needed

Bring many « human factors » questions

• How many time ahead must the driver be alerted?
• What tasks have an impact on taking back control?
• Is there any effect of long-time technology appropriation?
• How do we bring back the driver in the loop?
• What information should be communicated to the driver?

Also a matter of technical feasability

• What are the events that can really be anticipated a long time
before happening?

Some car manufacturers go directly

from level 2 to 4

 In level 4, everything is handled by the car. The use of the vehicle in such a level is however
restricted to specific use cases or environments. For instance, we could imagine a car being
totally autonomous only in highway situations.
Level 4

 The level 5 is the ultimate goal: a vehicle that can drive itself autonomously in every single
possible situation. Most of the time, people talk about level 5 when there is no driver or no
steering wheel in the vehicle. Please do not be fooled, these shuttles cannot go everywhere
and are restricted to certain areas, so they are actually Level 4 vehicles. Similarly, parking
valet functionalities, where the car parks itself automatically, can be considered as a Level 4
automation because its use is restricted to parking.

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 Level 5

Theoretically, everywhere,
in every situation
Often mentioned when there is no driver

Conclusion
To summarize, the important points are:
 An autonomous vehicle is a vehicle able to drive itself in real traffic conditions without
human intervention.
 It uses sensors to perceive the road, the environment, the obstacles as well as the vehicle
itself. It analyzes the situation and makes decisions to follow the planned trajectory as
accurately and as smoothly as possible.
 Safety is an extremely important issue for autonomous vehicles.
 There are 6 levels of automation that go from the classical car up until the fully autonomous
vehicle.

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