Enabling Technologies for Road Vehicle Automation

Technology is to a large extent driving the development of road vehicle automation. This Chapter summarizes the general overall trends in the enabling technologies within this field that were discussed during the Enabling technologies for road vehicle automation breakout session at the Automated Vehicle Symposium 2016. With a starting point in six scenarios that have the potential to be deployed at an early stage, five different categories of emerging technologies are described: (a) positioning, localization and mapping (b) algorithms, deep learning techniques, sensor fusion guidance and control (c) hybrid communication (d) sensing and perception and (e) technologies for data ownership and privacy. It is found that reliability and extensive computational power are the two most common challenges within the emerging technologies. Furthermore, cybersecurity binds all technologies together as vehicles will be constantly connected. Connectivity allows both improved local awareness through vehicle-to-vehicle communication and it allows continuous deployment of new software and algorithms that constantly learns new unforeseen objects or scenarios. Finally, while five categories were individually considered, further holistic work to combine them in a systems concept would be the important next step toward implementation.