Autonomous vehicles | Past, present and
……What role does design play?
Self-driving, before self-driving
Autonomous vehicles are hot topic at the moment (probably second only to Bitcoin?). What felt like a hype, and a distant dream till a few years ago is already claiming its place in mainstream mobility in our cities. While self-driving technology in its current form may be fairly new, the idea of a self-driving vehicle is old, really old, in fact older than even automobiles. Just like so many other inventions, Leonardo da Vinci is known to have designed the first ever self-propelled vehicle. It used coiled springs to propel itself and even had steering and braking capabilities. It could either move in a straight line or in pre-defined angles. This invention is said to have baffled inventors until the 20th century, when Italy’s Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence was finally able to rebuild a working model of Leonardo’s cart, in 2006(1).
However, it was not until 1925 that a driverless car was showcased to the public. It was a 1926 Chandler by the Houdina Radio Control Company. The car was radio-controlled and received its signals from an operator in another car that followed close behind. In 1926, Achen Motor also showcased a remote-controlled car called the “Phantom Auto” which had to be controlled in a similar fashion. Though these cars drew a lot of crowd, it became just a form of entertainment for people rather than a technology advancement. This was largely because the car had to be controlled by someone sitting in another moving vehicle anyway, making nobody’s life simpler(2).
Enter tech companies
While the years after saw continuous advance in autonomous vehicles and advanced mobility, it wasn’t really until 2010, when Google announced that it had been working on a self-driving car, that people realized that self-driving cars could be mainstream in the near future. Fast-forward to today, and there is probably no car company that plans to be successful through times, is *not* working on autonomous cars. Not only car companies, but even technology companies like Apple and Google, and ride-sharing companies like Uber, Lyft and Didi are in the play.
Will our cities really be dominated by self-driving cars in the near future? That seems to be highly possible. The consulting firm McKinsey predicts that automated vehicles will be seen in controlled environments and commercial transportation by 2023, and will be fully adopted by the consumer by 2037(3). That is just 20 years from now, during the lifetime of many who grew up when even cars were a luxury. The advantages of this technology are aplenty, the biggest of which is the number of lives it can potentially save. Considering most accidents are due to human error, researchers have projected that self-driving technology can save up to 90% of lives lost in road accidents(4). Cars communicating with each other and driving themselves in harmony will also mean smoother traffic and far less congestion.
“In the year 2037, non-autonomous vehicles will be as much of a curiosity as riding a horse is today”. — Elon Musk
Is it really going to change how we travel all that much?
Autonomous vehicles will lead to changes in the way cities today are designed. There will be no need for traffic lights. Roads can be narrower. There will be plenty of parking spaces. To understand its importance to a city, transportation can be compared with the blood circulation in the human body, and that shows just how much change will happen as a result of complete autonomy of transportation. It can change the notion of owning vehicles as it is today. Imagine you request a car when you need one, you are picked up from home, dropped to wherever you want to go, and then another car is at your service when you need it. Cars-on-demand. And you don’t have to own them. I will not even talk about what that would mean for the environment. Even if you do own one, imagine not having to look for parking spaces. Your car can park itself (far from where you got off) and come back just when you need it. Autonomy of transportation could potentially be the spawning ground for the biggest shared economy in history.
Design and autonomous vehicles
But what does design have to do with self-driving technology? A lot! And probably, the most important of all, is whether people end up trusting these possessed machines enough to send their kids to school in a self-driving school bus. And as someone wise said, trust starts with good communication.
Communication with the driver/passengers
Today’s vehicles communicate quite a bit with its users — the speed, rpm, amount of gas….you know the rest. Self-driving vehicles will have to communicate one very very important thing with its passengers — exactly what it is seeing, right from the car in front and and the lane markings to the tree on the side and the cat that crossed the road. Driving is a visual heavy activity and its amazing how many things our eyes are keep a tab on every second when we drive. Asking us to let the car drive us while we sit back is akin to driving with a blindfold (at least in my head). To not be this way, it is of paramount importance that we see what the car is seeing, at least until self-driving is the new norm.
Another piece of information that should be communicated is the reasoning behind the machine’s actions. Why did it stop? Red light or obstacle on the road or something wrong with the car? Does it know where it is going? Is it on track, the quickest route? This kind of information is especially important in semi-autonomous vehicles that require drivers to be attentive and and take over when the vehicle expects the driver to. Semi-autonomous cars today, like Tesla, require drivers to keep their hands on the wheel all the time, even when in autonomous mode. While that does not sound like a big deal, it is not ideal to expect an untrained human (prone to commit errors) monitor a machine without having to play an active part in its working. It is harder to not feel sleepy while monitoring a self-driving car, than while driving. Communicating the reason behind the car’s actions will help when the driver has to take over. Imagine a car in autonomous mode stops in the middle of the road and you are woken up from your nap, and you have no idea why it did that — will you ever trust it again?
How can a designer help people build trust with autonomous vehicles?
How can a designer help the car communicate to its users?
How can a designer make the handover experience smooth?
How will the driver communicate with the vehicle?
What a minute! Why does the driver have to communicate with the vehicle? Isn’t it driving on it’s own? Yes, but what if you want it to go faster? What if you want it to go slower? What if you don’t want it to overtake that truck in the front? What if the turn around the corner was too fast? Each and every one of us drive differently — good or bad, that is the way it is. Will we be okay for every single vehicle to have the same persona, and behave in the same way? I think there should be a way to personalize your own vehicle. Some of this can happen when we buy the vehicle, but importantly, by a way of giving feedback on the car’s actions. What if you could tell your car that you did not like what it just did and it knows what to do (and what not) the next time in a similar situation. However, since the whole premise of an autonomous vehicle is built on the fact that these vehicles can work(talk) with each other, there will have to be constraints on the personalization.
How can a designer help someone personalize the behavior of their autonomous vehicle?
Communication with pedestrians, and other road users
I’m sure all of us remember stopping for a pedestrian and signaling them to cross using eye contact. I’m sure we remember signaling to a cyclist to let them turn. Well, I am sure we all have made our displeasure clear to another driver who just cut us. How would all this happen if the car is driving on its own and the driver is asleep or reading a book? Will the driver still have to do that? That defeats the purpose of relaxing while your car drives you. Do pedestrians have to change their behavior? That would not be ideal too. Quite a few concepts have been surfacing to tackle this issue, both from reseachers as well as vehicle manufacturers.
There are a ton of scenarios that would require communication between the autonomous vehicle and other road users. Here are a few examples:
How will autonomous cars communicate their intent to other road users?
How will other road users communicate with autonomous vehicles?
In-car interactions
People don’t have to drive anymore will mean that they have more time each day for other activities during their commute. The entertainment industry should be smacking their lips at this prospect. The likes of Netflix and Amazon will be fighting to win you over to buy their in-car entertainment. To think of it, in-car entertainment was not even entertainment until now. You can watch your favorite shows or watch news on your way to work. Sony and Microsoft will want you to buy their “for car” Playstation and Xbox. Your car will be an extension of your living room, or bedroom, whatever you want it to be. A concept shown by Hyundai at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas shows a self-driving car that when parked, becomes a part of your living room. When you want to travel, you just sit and it takes off! Easy. And designers can play a huge role in designing these in-car experiences.
How can designers help design meaningful experiences inside a vehicle?
Potential to change the world
Autonomous vehicles will lead to changes in the way cities today are designed. There will be no need for traffic lights. Roads can be narrower. There will be plenty of parking spaces. To understand its importance to a city, transportation can be compared with the blood circulation in the human body, and that shows just how much change will happen as a result of complete autonomy of transportation. It can change the notion of owning vehicles as it is today. Imagine you request a car when you need one, you are picked up from home, dropped to wherever you want to go, and then another car is at your service when you need it. Cars-on-demand. And you don’t have to own them. I will not even talk about what that would mean for the environment. Even if you do own one, imagine not having to look for parking spaces. Your car can park itself (far from where you got off) and come back just when you need it. Autonomy of transportation could potentially be the spawning ground for the biggest shared economy in history.
However, drastic changes like the ones stated above would mean that the impact will be felt in various sectors. Firstly, to make all of this possible, a number of laws and policies will have to be made, and that is not going to be an easy task. Vehicles driving themselves would mean that all the responsibility is on the auto manufacturer and not the consumer anymore. Does that mean the manufacturer will be held guilty if something goes wrong? It goes without saying that these vehicles are driving based on certain ‘rules’. These algorithms dictate the autonomous vehicle’s behavior. It will become important for lawmakers to regulate and standardize how and what these vehicles are taught. If not, different manufacturers will be free to train their systems in any way they want to, leading to dangerous scenarios. Policies will have to be in place to govern moral and ethical situations that will arise when the technology becomes mainstream. Another industry that will have to re-think itself will be the insurance industry. With consumers owning the cars but automakers being responsible for accidents, how would insurance providers sell insurance policies to consumers?
While the government and large businesses will have to play a major role in how self-driving cars will become mainstream, the technology will be directly affecting the people in multiple ways. Like any technology, the biggest question is whether it will replace human jobs, and self-driving vehicles is no exception. While those of us who drive only to commute might be happy to sit back while our car drives us, people whose jobs are to drive these vehicles, the drivers, are not going to be happy with driverless
vehicles. One of the first industries that will see self-driving vehicles is the trucking industry. While it might make our highways safer, the truck drivers will lose their jobs. Same with buses, earth-moving machines, tractors, and any other commercial vehicle. It does not stop at commercial vehicles. In a lot of countries in the world, being a driver is a profession. In countries like India, millions of people who drive autos, buses, cars, vans and trains will likely lose their jobs.
“We won’t allow driverless cars in India”, said Nitin Gadkari, India’s minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping at the India Economic Summit 2016 in New Delhi, India. While this can be seen as a thoughtful statement, said keeping in mind the livelihood of millions, according to me, Nitin Gadkari is not seeing the bigger picture. While it is true that people will be affected, a country like India which faces roughly 150, 000 deaths a year due to road accidents and experiences traffic jams that span miles, self-driving cars can make the country much safer. Banning a technology might mean that a particular country will stagnate in its advancement. Instead, there will have to be laws to regulate the growth of this technology in a way that people don’t lose their jobs overnight. It’s a tough ask.
Self-driving technology has technologists and engineers and designers at the edge of their seats at the moment, more than ever. It can probably be called the biggest change we will see this century. It will truly change what we do and how we do. It will change the world.
References:
(1) “Self-Propelled Cart.” Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Propelled Cart Invention. Accessed October 19, 2017. http://www.da-vinci-inventions.com/self-propelled-cart.aspx.
(2) Nguyen, Tuan. “How a 1930’s Exhibit Set the Stage For Driverless Cars.” ThoughtCo. November 30, 2016. Accessed October 19, 2017. https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-self-driving-cars-4117191.
(3) Schiller, Ben. “How Self-Driving Cars Will Change The Economy And Society.” Fast Company. March 18, 2015. Accessed October 19, 2017. https://www.fastcompany.com/3043305/how-self-driving-cars-will-change-the-economy-and-society.
(4) LaFrance, Adrienne. “Self-Driving Cars Could Save 300,000 Lives Per Decade in America.” The Atlantic. September 29, 2015. Accessed October 19, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/self-driving-cars-could-save-300000-lives-per-decade-in-america/407956/.
