AUTOMOBILE AUTOMATION (AVCS) - The Real Automobile

AUTOMOBILE AUTOMATION (AVCS) - The Real Automobile

The potential benefits of automating the guidance of automobiles are extensive especially with regard to better utilization of highway space and safety. Proposals for automobile automation have been made for at least fifty years but a practical system has not been possible because of technology limitations. Now, new advances in technology have brought a practical system within reach. This article discusses the potential benefits of automation, the associated technology requirements, and cost/benefit trades.
Advanced Vehicle Control Systems (AVCS / AVEC)
To many people the subject of self-guided "automatic" automobiles has a "science fiction" flavor typical of projects that are either far beyond the state of the art or impractical from a cost/benefit standpoint. Actually, recent advances in computers, sensors and other related technology have made such a system feasible in the relatively near term and enormous benefits can justify major development and deployment costs.
AVCS Space Utilization Advantage
Human drivers are extremely inefficient in their use of highway space. A typical automobile, when parked in a garage, occupies about 100 square feet of space. Adding "overhead" in the form of areas to open the doors and walk around the car brings the total to perhaps 175 square feet. Yet this same automobile, when operated on the highway at 70 miles per hour requires over 5000 square feet of space. Each commuter, from the time he gets on the highway until he gets off requires an average highway space exceeding one-eighth of an acre that "dynamically" moves with him as he travels in order to operate at 70 mph. This is a large amount of space compared to the space most people occupy to live and work.
AVCS Feasibility Considerations
A vehicle guidance system capable of delivering on the promises outlined above would necessarily have to be highly sophisticated and presumably involve substantial electronics, computers, and software. But, vehicle guidance is a very safety critical function. We certainly aren’t going to deploy a new system that we couldn’t prove is safer than the existing system. At the same time, cost is going to be a major factor. Is our technology up to this task?
To explore this issue, lets examine some other transportation systems.
The elevator was first automated in approximately 1940. Because elevators are mechanically guided except for one degree of freedom and other simplifying circumstances, automation could be accomplished without electronics, much less computers.
Guidance of the Wright brother’s flyer (1917) was by means of cables connecting the pilots hands and feet to the control surfaces. Modern aircraft such as the Boeing 747 are guided in the same manner using cables and pulleys with the addition of mechanical/hydraulic force amplification to allow the pilot to control the much larger control surfaces. However, in the 1980s, aircraft such as the Boeing 767 were introduced where guidance is provided by a digital computer system. In effect the computer and associated software controls the plane and the pilots provide advice and direction to the computer via their controls. The computer systems significantly improve safety by detecting and overriding some types of pilot error. These computer systems (which have substantial redundancy) are considered sufficiently reliable to be used as the only means of guiding an aircraft carrying several hundred people and had enough advantages to justify their development and safety certification cost. Fighter aircraft and the Space Shuttle have similar control systems
Keep in mind that the potential benefits of AVCS are extremely large. The savings in highway construction cost, real estate required for highways, pollution, travel time, and reduced injury and death will justify rather large development and deployment costs. Would you rather have a manual Mercedes or an automated Chevrolet that would get you to work in half the time with half the hassle?

AVCS Architecture Considerations
One possible approach to vehicle guidance automation would be to simply replace the driver with a "robot" system that would perform some of the same functions, only better, using existing highways. However, a "hybrid" system in which some functions are performed by automation equipment in the highway and other functions are performed by equipment in the vehicle has major advantages and is virtually certain to be chosen for any deployed system. It is assumed that the highway and vehicle systems would communicate and cooperate in the execution of the guidance task. Here are some scenarios illustrating potential features of a hybrid system:
Highways automation systems could have "machine readable" signs, marks, or electronic signals to aid in guidance and supplement any imagery analysis system.