Audi R8 e-tron piloted driving technical concept car
digital.audi-presskit.de
digital.audi-presskit.de
http://www.audiusa.com/newsroom/topics/2014/piloted-driving
Audi has developed a philosophy and strategy for autonomous driving that it calls “piloted driving.” The name accurately reflects the Audi approach to this important and growing field of technology and aspect of the ownership experience: Give the Audi driver a digital “pilot” to guide the trip and assist in making it to his or her destination safely. Yet don’t usurp outright operating control of the vehicle or diminish the joy and satisfaction of driving that is a huge part of the Audi ownership experience. Making it clear exactly which entity is in control at each moment also is crucial, so Audi piloted driving emphasizes human-machine interface prompts to accomplish this. Illustrative of this approach is one automated-driving feature that Audi continues to define, called a “congestion pilot.” It relieves the driver of the task of driving while the system automatically accelerates, brakes and steers the vehicle, at speeds up to about 37 mph. Once the traffic jam disperses or the end of the highway has been reached, the driver is prompted to take back control. If the driver fails to respond, the system safely brings the car to a standstill.
The automated brake thing exists as well in todays Audis. It randomly beeps if you're driving around a corner and sometimes hits the brakes at speeds below 30km/h (in a traffic jam, for example) for no reason.
I'd trust a drunken and tired driver in a big LandRover more than any Audi technology, based on my anecdotes/my experience with three generations of A3s (currently the quattro 8V chassis/model).
And I swear by it.
I'll be doing 70mph, and come across traffic that's doing 50mph. The adaptive cruise detects this, and slows the vehicle. When traffic continues to build up, and eventually stops, so does the vehicle. When the traffic starts again, you tap the accelerator and the cruise kicks in again. It speeds up, based on the speed of the car in front, back to your set limit.
So, I've just gone from 70mph to 0mph to 70mph without touching a brake and tapping the accelerator once.
I've also been cut off, by a motorbike, and the car's technology has detected that and braked safely.
It's a bit rough on the brakes sometimes, and the acceleration could be smoother from a stand-still, but I continue to use it so that should be testament enough that it's reliable.
The random brakes I was talking about (and the annoying beeps) are from the Pre-Sense tech or whatever they tend to call it. The "I detect that you'll have an accident in the next moment" assistant. Which in my experience either beeps just because (you're driving around a corner and the car seems to believe that you drive straight in the rails or something) or randomly (only if below 30km/h, thank god! Above that it "just" beeps) hits the brakes to avoid a collision. It's a nightmare. The rest of the car is in similar shape. So ACC: Yeah, kinda works here as well.
In general I really like the ACC, although it really high lights the inconsistency in other drivers speed (often for no apparent reason). It also isn't as clever as a driver, so you are constantly sat there observing things it can't and waiting for it to notice like a car about to pull into your lane. Another annoyance is that it will slow down for cars that you can see are moving out of your lane, or turning off, when continuing a the same speed would have been fine.
I also have the auto dimming head lights, although they too are a little dumb. They respond to seeing the oncoming car's lights, by which time you have blinded the driver of the other car. They are not clever enough to see the lights coming around a corner, and also sometimes miss a motorbike, or mistake a reflective sign for a car. They also don't work at junctions :(
Peraps next time I will drop the head lights for side assist.
Lane assist is silly, doesn't do jack and constantly beeps at you to take back control over the car if you drive 'too straight' (hands on the wheel, mind you).
Head lights: Same issue. I .. don't use those anymore, feeling bad about people both coming into my direction and driving in front of me. That's just insane. I'm easily blinded myself and just don't feel that I can use the lights without being an ass.
Basically this car had close to every feature checked off and by now I'm quite annoyed (keyless entry is broken as well, constantly bitches that I need to replace the batteries - which I did a couple times by now - only to work fine again sometimes. Don't get me started on the Audi connect feature set.. The saddest thing in history, really. You can send your coordinates to Twitter or share your ETA on Facebook!)
You can heat it to around 300 degrees c to recover the carbon fibre out of the epoxy, but I don't think there are any commercial places doing this currently? I may be mistaken?
The argument they brought up again and again is that they are very concerned about taking away the fun of the driving. I think their marketing team told them to use the term piloted driving, to make sure no customer believes the new cars will take the steering wheel out of the customers hands and take his ability to drive in a fun way. I guess that comes from the view they have of themselves as producers of fun to drive cars, which the customers buy for the sake of having fun driving them.
If you drive in a nice Audi it seems to be hard to imagine that for most people driving a car is not as much fun. They also made it clear that they will rather not having an autonomous car then having one which would be not "Audi" looking ( camera on top etc.). At least they use these arguments when they talk about the Google car being no threat to them.
In reality most Audi in Germany seem to be driven by business people and consultants that need to travel a lot on the Autobahn, and i can imagine some of them wanting to have fun while spending 3+ hours a day driving, but most of them would be glad to do other stuff during that time.
But they probably did some market research, we will see if it works out for them.
I think Audi is over-estimating the 'fun' component - for many people in my generation, driving is a dangerous and annoying necessity. But maybe thats just the IT bubble I'm living in.
I like driving a lot, but 1.5 hours on a highway tend to be boring.
Selected Quotes;
"In the future system for piloted driving, the radar sensors will remain an important component of the sensor array. They will acquire information from the zone in front of the car as they do today. A video camera with a wide angle lens detects the lane markings as well as pedestrians and objects, such as other vehicles and guard rails. Up to twelve ultrasonic sensors are used to monitor the immediate space around the car."
"Piloted parking from Audi will let drivers exit the vehicle and conveniently control the car remotely with the remote key fob or a smartphone."
"Audi conceptualized this central control unit, which will be introduced to the model line-up in stages, together with leading international technology partners that include TTTech, Mobileye, Nvidia and Delphi. Delphi will be the future system supplier."
"The zFAS board is equipped with both the EyeQ3 mobile processor from Mobileye and the new Tegra K1 from Nvidia."