Opportunities and Challenges in Cooperative Road Vehicle Automation

Steven E Shladover

doi:10.1109/ojits.2021.3099976

Abstract

This paper provides an introduction to the opportunities for improving the performance of road transportation automation systems by use of vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-infrastructure communication and cooperation. Four different types of cooperative driving automation are defined and examples of the functionality enabled by each are described. Although the benefits of cooperative automation are significant, there are also significant challenges to its widespread deployment, which are also described. The risks of over-reliance on communication for cooperative automation implementations are also discussed to provide a balanced view of appropriate levels of cooperation.

Highlights

P RIVATE companies in the automotive and information technology industries are investing heavily in the development of Automated Driving Systems (ADS), the systems that will be capable of performing the complete dynamic driving task (DDT) under certain conditions, defined by the system’s operational design domain (ODD) [1]
There are compelling reasons to pursue cooperative road vehicle automation based on the benefits that it can provide to individual users and to the performance of the transportation system as a whole
The rest of this paper explores the opportunities and challenges associated with adding cooperative elements to road vehicle automation

Summary

INTRODUCTION

P RIVATE companies in the automotive and information technology industries are investing heavily in the development of Automated Driving Systems (ADS), the systems that will be capable of performing the complete dynamic driving task (DDT) under certain conditions, defined by the system’s operational design domain (ODD) [1]. The future tense is used here because these capabilities are under active development there are only a few very limited instances in which they have been introduced into public use to perform a real transportation function Almost all of these ADS have been designed to operate autonomously, based entirely on the information collected by their onboard sensors, and without the benefit of external information from, or active coordination with, other road users or the roadway infrastructure. - Political uncertainties about the availability of the wireless spectrum needed for V2X communications Despite these concerns, there are compelling reasons to pursue cooperative road vehicle automation based on the benefits that it can provide to individual users and to the performance of the transportation system as a whole. Cautionary examples about over-emphasis on cooperative automation functions are introduced in the context of cyber-security, cooperative perception and cloud-based distributed architectures for automation

TERMINOLOGY FOR COOPERATIVE DRIVING AUTOMATION SAE

OPPORTUNITIES TO ENHANCE SAFETY

OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE TRAFFIC FLOW

Findings

CHALLENGES FOR COOPERATIVE AUTOMATION