Volvo Cars' Drive Me pilot program announced last week will push autonomous driving a step closer to reality by putting 100 self-driving XC90 crossovers on Swedish streets by 2017.
The vehicles will be driven by ordinary people in Volvo's home city of Gothenburg using a controlled 31-mile route. They'll be used for daily commuting on roads with a barrier between the lanes and operate "in real traffic in a real situation," the company said.
The trial will run until the spring of 2019.
"We are entering uncharted territory in the field of autonomous driving," said Peter Mertens, senior vice president of r&d at Volvo Car Group. "Taking the exciting step to a public pilot, with the ambition to enable ordinary people to sit behind the wheel in normal traffic on public roads, has never been done before."
Volvo is collaborating with Swedish authorities. The cars will be leased to drivers, but they won't be charged for the full cost of the technology. Volvo experts discussed the project during an Internet press conference.
New autopilot system
The autonomous vehicles will use a network of sensors, cloud-based positioning systems and intelligent braking and steering technologies. They'll use a new Volvo autopilot system that allows the vehicle to take over steering, turning, braking and parking. The trial will run on specific public roadways "without oncoming traffic, cyclists and pedestrians," Volvo said.
"It is relatively easy to build and demonstrate a self-driving concept vehicle, but if you want to create an impact in the real world, you have to design and produce a complete system that will be safe, robust and affordable for ordinary customers," said Erik Coelingh, a Volvo technical specialist.
The driver will be able to take control in critical situations, Volvo said.
Volvo said it has built in fail-safe systems, similar to those in the aircraft industry, so that the autopilot system continues to work if an element is disabled. For instance, the vehicles will have a second, independent brake system.
The system also will prompt the driver to take over during "exceptional weather conditions, technical malfunction or the end of the route," Volvo said. "If the driver is incapacitated for any reason and does not take over in time, the car will bring itself to a safe place to stop."
Car-to-car communication
Vehicles communicating with each other and with road signs, traffic lights and other infrastructure enables vital information to be shared -- creating a more comfortable and safer drive. The technology is based on communication between transmitters in vehicles and the road infrastructure, and makes it possible to transmit information about local icy or slippery road patches from one car to other vehicles.
U.S. is 'interesting'
Volvo executives didn't say what countries they'll target for sale of autonomous vehicles but indicated "the U.S. is an interesting market for autonomous drive."
"The customer demand is high -- commuters in megacities -- road conditions are appropriate, and the authorities are positive," said Karl-Johan Runnberg, director of government affairs for Volvo Cars.
Runnberg said the cost of an autonomous-driving system won't be much higher than that of today's active-safety and driver-support systems. Volvo will disclose which suppliers it is working with closer to launch, he said.
The 2016 XC90 that goes on sale in May already has some of the systems -- including three radar systems and four cameras. The sensor technology and algorithms will be reused for the self-driving cars.
Volvo experts said the technology for the pilot project is "producible in the near future."
"By putting it into the real world, we will find limitations, we will learn and we will adapt," said Coelingh. "Within this limited scope, we can verify if it is safe."
The vehicles will have data recorders similar to an airplane's black box so Volvo can determine the cause if a crash occurs.
Volvo Oct 2015
There’s been a rush of self-driving car news of late, with GM, Toyota and others outlining plans to bring autonomous technology to vehicles. Volvo is no exception, with plans to let the public test an autopilot system on 100 vehicles in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2017 or 2018. While Volvo is already on the forefront of features such as automatic braking to avoid collisions, it’s also developing technology to handle all aspects of driving — in some situations. During highway driving, Volvo envisions drivers sitting back and sending e-mails or watching videos.
“There’s nobody today who thinks it’s enjoyable to sit in a traffic jam, or drive exactly the same distance every morning,” said Volvo chief executive Hakan Samuelsson after an event discussing self-driving technology at the Swedish embassy in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “That’s probably where it’s better to do some work, use that time for mailing or writing or reading or whatever, because it’s really a big waste of time in our society sitting there supervising a car which is almost automated.”
Google is also racing ahead in this space, building prototypes of a vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. Its vision is a vehicle that takes the full burden of driving — push a button and get from A to B. Volvo isn’t going quite that far, at least not yet.
“We believe that Volvos will always, for the foreseeable future, have a steering wheel. So they can be driven, or they can be driven automated,” Samuelsson said.
Volvo envisions drivers hitting a button, and the car will take over the driving. When circumstances are such that the vehicle can’t drive safely on its own, drivers will be alerted to retake control of the vehicle. The warning could give a driver up to a minute, or it could ask for immediate intervention. If the driver doesn’t retake control in time, the Volvo will automatically slow and pull to the side of the road so as to avoid danger.
“If we say to a driver, ‘the car drives itself,’ and we say the driver is allowed to do secondary tasks, we cannot count anymore on the fact the driver immediately intervenes when really necessary,” explained Erik Coelingh, who leads Volvo’s safety and driver support technologies, during a panel at the event.
Volvo says it will assume all liability for when the car is operating on autopilot, and is pushing for federal guidelines to govern autonomous driving.
“The U.S. is not in the forefront in the regulation, but it is in the forefront in this technology,” Samuelsson said. “The U.S. should use this leadership on the federal level to give some guidelines and direction on how cars can be used.”
Samuelsson said the system that Volvo is developing may not be suited for city driving, and highway driving is likely where it will be used.
Samuelsson sees a distinction between what Volvo is doing, and the technology Google is developing.
“If you have a totally automated car without a steering wheel then you are creating a sort of urban transportation system. That’s something very different,” Samuelsson said. “I don’t think for us it’s a commercial option to sell those types of cars. Then you have to be in the business of selling the transportation and such. I think Google is not a competitor.”