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Self-Driving Cars, Explained

Are self-driving cars safe? Watch this video to see Matthias Schmid, Ph.D. — who builds fully self-driving vehicles that can traverse roads autonomously and even move through forests where paths don’t even exist — answer the question in an unexpected way.

Topics:
ADAS Automotive Autonomy

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 - [Reporter] More than 2000 self-driving cars are on the road in California. - We have new details of the dangers they may pose. - Wild, but not there just yet. - My life is in this car's hands. - Fully self-driving is happening. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Everyone is talking about self-driving cars. Are they safe? We asked Matthias Schmid,

    00:00:18 assistant professor of mechanical and automotive engineering, because he recently led a team to create a fully autonomous vehicle that can maneuver in off-road environments. Here's what he has to say. - Autonomous technologies come on different levels. We see some of its advantages already in daily life on every street. A brake assistant feature in a car

    00:00:38 is an autonomous technology. It can prevent accidents. It can make things more safe. Drivers are distracted. Even if you don't take the driver completely out of the loop, autonomous technologies can help. - [Narrator] Autonomous technology doesn't necessarily mean self-driving cars. It can refer to instances when cars use brake-assisted features, traction control, and lane monitoring systems.

    00:01:00 These features do make us safer today. An autonomous technology like this has actually been around for a while. - You could consider the autopilot in a plane an autonomous feature. As a matter of fact, planes can land almost completely automatically nowadays. So from that sense, there have been around several decades, actually. We see them right now more

    00:01:17 and more deployed on the streets. One has to distinguish also that autonomy does not necessarily mean fully self-driving cars. - [Narrator] But what about fully self-driving vehicles? Is it safe to be on the road with them, riding inside or driving nearby? - The deployment of autonomous vehicles strictly depends on the deployment arena. If you have a very structured environment where you can make changes to the infrastructure,

    00:01:39 where you have beacons and other aids, we are at the technology level where we can make autonomy happen. - [Narrator] And we know that, because we've seen major manufacturers do this with fully autonomous trucks, moving supplies around the warehouse facilities, and we've seen smaller vehicles trained in certain locations delivering food. These situations are safe, but what about the open road?

    00:01:58 And are we at the point where autonomous vehicles are ready to drive alongside us in town and on the highway? - In a city, traffic is something completely different. The problem with autonomous technology is the involvement of humans. You have to account for the actions of humans. For a foreseeable future, we will have legacy vehicles, and this combination of vehicles of different kinds in traffic makes it even harder. What needs to be guaranteed

    00:02:22 amongst everything is human safety. So when you hear that something works for 99.9% of the cases, it sounds good at first sight, but it's actually terrible in terms of actual traffic. It means that once in a thousand times, you are actually running over the intersection without recognizing it. So we need to do really good, really safe, and ensure absolutely robust and safe behavior, because we do have humans directly involved.

    00:02:51 - [Narrator] So are fully self-driving vehicles safe? Clemson's answer: Not yet for every environment and situation. Cars can't drive through differing context without human guidance. We will gradually adjust to cars taking more actions for us as they are able to do so in a safe manner 100% of the time. - Fully self-driving is happening. - [Narrator] What are you curious about? Drop a comment below to let us know

    00:03:13 what questions Clemson faculty should answer next. If you enjoyed this video, and want to see similar content, don't forget to like and subscribe.