As we can see, disruption has become a new trend in the Automotive industry. The technologies are not developing with a promising future but opening new doors something which was beyond our imagination, let’s say 20 or 30 years ago.
One such innovation is a semi or fully automated driving system. The market is functionally very competitive with lots of key players from across the world navigating with the various associations.
The market also opens a platform for the Tier 2 or Tier 3 industries where they get the options to invest in special components and spare parts for compensating for any original items to be replaced or repaired.
Even then the market presents potential challenges as follows: —
- Capability of anticipation- One of the major problems faced by the automatic driving system is predicting the traffic situations which are imminent. It’s a natural reflex that gets developed in human drivers over the time when the observation quality of their surroundings is more reactive even from a greater distance compare to the proactive quality of automated vehicles.
- Recognize situation and behavior- Traffic conditions across different geographies cannot be structured in one group. It totally depends upon the behavior of the surrounding. A system that is completely dependent on analyzing the current behavior scenarios, interpreting the information, and recognizing a pattern still needs time and is limited.
- Safety protocols need to be flexible- V2V, i.e. the communication between vehicles happens with a certain pattern of behavior recognized during the test run period, which is programmed rigidly, resulting in limiting the flexibility of the safety protocols.
- Other vehicles need to be considered- While driving in a cluttered environment, vehicles need to be considered various other vehicles on its way and the space surrounding the vehicles. While a human driver in a normal case and under law and regulation would consider other drivers as per the courtesy or interact and view the speed and behavior of another vehicle. Often times, the reaction is much faster by a human driver during emergency condition rather than an automated machine.
- Are the rights equal to a conventional vehicle- In a practical and real-time world scenario, a conventional vehicle and an automated vehicle cannot be treated in the same manner. The roads or the traffic situation which are designed as per the rules of a conventional vehicle cannot apply to an automated vehicle. Even though the sensor technology, laser scanner and other supporting equipment are provided but a human-made machine is often prone to risk, error or as a default they don’t have the sensitivity of an exact human driver. The test cases may show a definitive and optimistic solution but the rights need to be altered as per the new driving mode.