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Remote AV safety testing underway in Michigan as call for federal regulations continue

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Market Trends | Technology
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While backing support for federal autonomous vehicle (AV) safety standards, University of Michigan researchers have invited academic researchers to use its mock city remotely for AV and connected vehicle testing.

Mcity opened remotely on Oct. 8 following two years of upgrades, according to an article on the university’s website. Within the coming year, Mcity plans to assist 10 research teams from academic institutions in the U.S. with their testing needs.

“By allowing outside researchers to tap into Mcity research vehicles and testing technologies from afar, U-M seeks to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle technologies to enable safer and more efficient transportation,” the article states.

Mcity simulation tools have also been chosen for a new project in partnership with NVIDIA and MITRE, a nonprofit research managing firm.

The goal is a full simulation version of Mcity that industry and academic researchers can use to “rigorously test and validate” AVs to accelerate their development and adoption.

“We believe Mcity 2.0’s capabilities will expand the volume and increase the speed of AV research that will be conducted and published,” said Henry Liu, U-M professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of Mcity and the Center for Connected and Automated Transportation, in the article. “This could help put more refined, safer AVs on our roads sooner.”

According to the article, researchers operating from their home bases can test their autonomous algorithms in virtual and mixed-reality environments by connecting to Mcity’s cloud-based digital infrastructure. Mcity uses 5G wireless communications to allow researchers to control physical vehicles and traffic signals on its test streets. Real-time data is then received while proprietary information is protected.

“Liu believes federal leadership — in the form of testing standards and funding — is crucial to accelerating development and rollout of AVs to achieve the benefits they could provide: safer roads, cleaner air, [and] greater access to mobility options for those who have little or no access today.

“Several unanswered questions lie at the heart of the matter, including:

    • “How should AVs be tested and evaluated? How safe is safe enough?
    • “How do we properly prepare our infrastructure to support AV technologies?
    • “How should AVs be licensed?
    • “How should AVs be insured?”

According to an Oct. 8 article by the Associated Press, Liu suggests that a driver’s test should, for example, be able to determine whether a self-driving vehicle can make a left turn at an intersection without the protection of a traffic light with a green arrow.

He said it should also ensure that the vehicle will halt at a stop sign and detect and yield to a small pedestrian crossing a road, the AP reports.

“A test, he said, would prevent a poorly performing robot vehicle from being turned loose on society, much as a human driver’s test would keep an incompetent driver off the road. But he acknowledged that no test could prevent all crashes involving self-driving vehicles.”

During the NVIDIA AI Summit last week in Washington, D.C., NVIDIA Automotive Vice President Danny Shapiro said improving road safety is “critical,” noting that NVIDIA has been working for over two decades with the auto industry, according to an NVIDIA blog post.

That reportedly includes work on advanced driver assistance systems and fully autonomous driving technology development.

Mark Rosekind, former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), spoke about the patchwork of regulations across the U.S., explaining that federal agencies focus on the vehicle while states focus on the operator, including driver education, insurance, and licensing, according to the NVIDIA post.

Marco Pavone, NVIDIA director of AV research, said new tools allow researchers and developers to rethink how AV development is carried out including new technologies related to generative AI and neural rendering.

“These technologies are enabling new developments in simulation, for example, to generate complex scenarios aimed at stress testing vehicles for safety purposes,” the post states. “And they’re harnessing foundation models, such as vision language models, to allow developers to build more robust autonomy software, Pavone said.”

The full panel discussion is available to view here.

An Oct. 10 article by NPR notes that driverless cars do seem to be safer in some situations, according to a recent study from the University of Central Florida.

“It is anticipated that the automation of systems will significantly reduce the number of accidents, as human errors contribute up to 90% of accidents,” the study says.

NPR added, “But the research also shows there’s not enough data to really know: ‘Despite the recent advancements that Autonomous Vehicles have shown in their potential to improve safety and operation, considering differences between Autonomous Vehicles and Human-Driven Vehicles in accidents remain unidentified due to the scarcity of real-world Autonomous Vehicles accident data.'”

In an interview with NPR, New Yorker cartoonist and author Amy Kurzweil said she has taken Waymos a couple of times in San Francisco and, while she enjoys the experience, the inhuman voice and steering wheel spinning without anyone sitting behind it is “uncanny.”

“That’s triggering our nightmare sense that there should be somebody there, and there isn’t,” she said, according to NPR. “Because we’re often slotting robots into human jobs and human roles, we have this little background nightmare of them as actually having human agency, which they don’t have. And there is something about the driverless car that is a really good symbol for that anxiety.”

NPR added, “This ghostly echo of the human driver who isn’t there taps into peoples’ deep-seated fears about machines possessing a kind of human consciousness.”

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Featured image credit: metamorworks/iStock

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