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Connected and Autonomous Vehicles:

The Tech BehindThe Wheel

Edward JonesRSA Conference on Connectedand Autonomous VehiclesDublin Castle, 3rd May 2018

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Overview

AI: The “Brains”

4

Some Background

1

But What About The Driver?

5

Common Misconceptions

2

Closing Remarks

6

Sensors: The “Eyes”

3

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Some Background

Connaught Automotive Research (CAR) Group

Focus on sensors, machine learning/AI –helping the vehicle to better understand its environment

Also interested in the driver state – research in biomedical signal processing

Funding from a variety of public and industry sources

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Our Sponsors

Function

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

What we do

Sensors

Primary “Tools”

Signal Conditioning

Feature Extraction

Machine Learning

Camera Infrared Radar Other

RAW DATA

Common Misconceptions

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Words are important

What does

“autonomous”really mean?

Confusion between “automation” and

“autonomous”

Common misconception:

driver does absolutely nothing

at all!

The realty is more

complex - different levels of automation

SOCIETY OF AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERS (SAE) AUTOMOTION LEVELS FULL AUTOMATION

Sensors:The “Eyes”

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Sensor “Cocoon”

Can’t really “identify”

objects

Ultrasonicsuseful at short range

Low cost

Ultrasonics/RadarRadar good for long range

Very common

Not good at “depth”(but stereo visioncan be used)

Provide a lot of information (but

software is neededto make sense of it)

Not good in bad weather/night-time

Relatively low cost

Cameras

Infra Red Cameras

Heat seeking More expensive

Like radar but uses light

“Spinning cylinders”

Still expensive –but getting cheaper (and less obtrusive)

Gives depth

LIDAR

AI:The “Brains”

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Sensorsonly provide data –software is needed to make sense of it.

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Environment Driver

Sensors

Artificial Intelligence

Data Flow

Feedback

ControlLearning

“Artificial Intelligence” “Machine Learning”

What do these words really mean?

Will computers become smarter than humans?

A more likely concern in the short to medium term is that they’ll

become just clever enough to do stupid things.

But, what about the driver?

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Level 3 Automation –

“partial autonomy”

Driver may need to take controlat short notice

Car needs to know if driver is able to do that

Monitoring vital signs(heart rate, respiration rate, gaze direction)

Difficulty in defining “driver state”

Driver Monitoring

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Tech Behind The Wheel

Technology is not perfect – but is improving all the time

Interaction between vehicle and driver remains critical

Expectations must be managed

Incremental development –evolution not revolution

Closing Remarks

Thank you foryour attention!

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The tech behind the Wheel