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Putting the ‘auto’ in automobile

SANTA CLARA (california) — “We call this our comfort cam,” said Eran Sandhaus, vice-president of software and services for Delphi, a major car industry supplier, as he pointed to a small screen inside a self-driving Audi.

SANTA CLARA (california) — “We call this our comfort cam,” said Eran Sandhaus, vice-president of software and services for Delphi, a major car industry supplier, as he pointed to a small screen inside a self-driving Audi.

A similar car had travelled more than 5,000km across America in 2014, with Delphi engineers doing only one per cent of the actual driving.

Likewise, as soon as the Audi we were in pulled out from the car park, an engineer hit a button and the car took over, piloting itself along the streets smoothly, interacting with other traffic much the same way any driver would.

The car chooses when to switch lanes by itself, signals its turns religiously and, truth be told, accelerates more steadily than most drivers here seem capable of doing.

If anything, the remarkable thing about this autonomous car is how unremarkable it feels to sit inside it.

Welcome to the future of driving. Or, indeed, not driving.

“Autonomous” is the new buzzword when it comes to transport; and with road trials for autonomous cars being conducted — not just in Singapore, but around the world — that future could arrive sooner than you think.

The key component of an autonomous car is not the car per se, but what is inside it — and not just under the bonnet of the car, either.

The Audi, for example, has 26 sensors and cameras that let it “see” its surroundings, and the comfort cam lets passengers see what the car sees: An outline of the street, other vehicles, traffic lights, and so on.

Sandhaus said it calms people down to look at the screen, especially if they are riding in an autonomous car for the first time.

“What you see here is exactly what the ‘brain’ of the car sees, one-to-one,” said Sandhaus.

This “brain” is powered by Intel, the chip-maker best known for its ubiquitous personal computing processors. The company scrambled to set up an Automated Driving Solutions division in December, after realising the huge potential for autonomous cars. Investment bank Goldman Sachs, for example, estimates that the market for such technology could grow to US$96 billion (S$135 billion) by 2025, and US$290 billion by 2035.

While Intel declined to say how many people it has working on the technology, its Automated Driving group was carved out of the larger Internet Of Things team. But rather than striving to manufacture a self-driving car, Intel essentially aims to provide the guts of a system that car companies that use for their own products.

More than 100 prototype autonomous cars are already powered by Intel chips, but the company sees the race as a team effort. In March, it bought Mobileye, an Israeli company that specialises in camera systems for self-driving cars. Along with that purchase came Mobileye’s relationship with some two dozen car makers.

It would appear that the computing requirements present the real hurdle when it comes to autonomous cars.

“We see this as a data challenge,” said Jack Weast, the chief system architect for Intel’s autonomous driving division.

On a typical day, an autonomous car will generate four terabytes of data, he said. In contrast, a generous mobile data plan here gives you just six gigabytes a month.

Weast said fully autonomous cars will require an “exponential” jump in processing power, compared to cars today that can govern their own speed or stay automatically within their own lane.

Another key component is the accompanying infrastructure.

“Connectivity is also important,” said Weast. “If you connect to the cloud, you can download high-definition map information, for example.”

That would require a 5G connection, along with data centres that have enormous computing power.

Once those pieces are in place, connected cars would be able to warn one another about road hazards, and communicate closely to pull off neat tricks such as driving in close formation. That reduces wind resistance, and can cut fuel consumption by 15 per cent.

Those will not be the only benefits. Weast foresees an “incredible reduction in injury or loss of life” once autonomous cars are commonplace, because the vast majority of accidents are due to human error.

Robo-taxis could also provide more mobility for the young and elderly, and could free up land used by parking infrastructure.

“Autonomous vehicles are going to be very, very valuable to society at large,” Weast said.

Already, BMW, Intel and Mobileye have announced plans to have a self-driving car for sale by 2021. The three will also put 40 autonomous BMWs on the road later this year; while Delphi said it wants to make its system available to car companies by 2019, at a cost of a few thousand dollars per car.

Delphi could also have a driverless taxi service in operation in Singapore within three years, said Glen De Vos, the company’s chief technology officer.

The company already has one autonomous Audi on trial in SIngapore, but will add two more cars next month. It is working with the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to find out what is needed on the infrastructure side, while gathering data about how best to track a fleet of autonomous cars and optimise their use.

“We’re not doing it as a science experiment. We want to work with the LTA to actually launch a commercial service,” said De Vos.

After two more years of data gathering and a further two years of trials, Delphi could offer what Grab and Uber do today, but without a human behind the wheel.

Asked to give the odds for Singapore becoming the first city in the world to make autonomous taxis a reality, De Vos said they are “fairly high”. “Singapore has a very progressive and thoughtful strategy for municipality planning,” said De Vos. “The government agencies really are thinking long-term.”

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