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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
HERE on building trust in self-driving technology
Remco Timmer, SVP Product Management, Head of Automotive Solutions at HERE Technologies, discusses issues around trust and safety – as well as the role for mapping – in developing driverless vehicles. What is your sense of where we are on the journey to self-driving autonomous vehicles? With any new technology, the first reaction of the public is often mistrust or even fear, and the road to building trust can be long. Self-driving technology is still early on in that journey, and the stakes are high as assisted and autonomous driving are critical safety functions with human lives at stake if the technology fails. As it stands, the general public does not feel comfortable with the idea: the World Risk Report found just 27% would be comfortable in a self-driving vehicle. Research in the Journal of Risk Research found that trust, rather than knowledge will be key to driving acceptance of self-driving technology. How important is ADAS tech in this? Car makers must build trust through the gradual adoption of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Our collective knowledge of the road network, efficiently encoded into maps, combined with robust, scalable training and validation in simulations, and transparent communication to facilitate collaboration between humans and machines all play vital roles in this transition. Switch Auto Insurance and Save Today! Great Rates and Award-Winning Service The Insurance Savings You Expect Affordable Auto Insurance, Customized for You By introducing simpler, low-level automation systems as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), car makers can accustom users to the many advantages of self-driving systems. These benefits include smoother and more relaxed rides, as well as improved safety and efficiency, which will nurture confidence amongst the public. . Consumers need to become familiar with how vehicles can seamlessly and continuously support their driving. Looking ahead then, what do you see as the next critical steps to achieving progress? On the transparency front, I believe there are three critical steps. Being able to see what cars 'understand' about the world around them will be fundamental to building confidence as car manufacturers gradually introduce autonomy, starting with systems such as Intelligent Speed Assistance. Over time, this progresses towards SAE level 3 Autonomy, where cars can handle many driving tasks, allowing drivers to take their hands off the wheel and even their eyes off the road at certain times, as defined in the operational design domain (ODD). The ODD definition is encoded onto a map layer. It outlines where, under what conditions an ADAS feature is or is not available. This is the first key element to transparency. Drivers need to understand in advance what level of ADAS support is available. The navigation system can use it to plan the most supported route, and the vehicle can communicate in advance to the driver when they can gain more or when they have to regain control of the vehicle. The second critical step is to have drivers educated on how the car works, which will be reassuring. It is similar to sitting next to someone you believe to be an inexperienced driver; you need reassurance that they know what they are doing. For that to happen, it helps for the driver to see and understand what the car 'sees' and processes about the environment around it. By demonstrating its complete understanding, drivers can relax and trust the vehicle. The car's perception stack, the sensors the vehicle 'sees' through, such as camera, radar and lidar, work in harmony with high quality map data as the vehicle needs to understand the environment beyond what it can 'see'. The perception stack's field of view might be obstructed (by a corner or elevation) or impaired by other vehicles or weather, however the vehicle also needs to be aware of non-observable information that is encoded in the map, like road rules and regulations. The third step is for users to understand and feel comfortable with what the car is about to do next. Not only what it can do next, as outlined in step one, but more specifically its manoeuvres. The car must constantly communicate its intent so that users know, for example, when it is about to overtake or change lanes. Clarity in communication from the car is essential to avoid everything from drivers feeling surprised or disoriented which could lead to anxiety and even motion sickness. Transparency is key but we need to ensure that the level of detail can vary so that the driver is not needlessly bombarded with information, offering more detail in heavy traffic and less detail while cruising on the highway. Offering more to inexperienced users and less to experienced users. Where do maps fit in? Maps will be vital to delivering the awareness that the vehicle and the drivers need to fully trust autonomous vehicles. Sensors underpin the ADAS systems that help drivers and keep them safe, but alone, these sensors are not enough: the map is what sees 'beyond' the sensor range, delivering contextual awareness. With live maps delivered over the air, it becomes easier to communicate to the user what the car 'understands' about the environment. This helps build trust by reassuring the driver that they are safe, but also that the technology is working to make sense of the world around them. Maps are far more than just a navigation tool. They can help a vehicle 'understand' the world around it. By working as a 'dynamic canvas of collective knowledge of the road network' maps can be used by a vehicle to both depict (provide context) and understand the world. As a consequence, drivers enjoy smoother manoeuvres and more efficient rides. The dynamic live map is a canvas for collaboration. For instance, another car driving further down the road might see accidents or other hazards, and transmit that data to the dynamic map, so the next driver can be aware of the danger. Testing and validation for driverless systems is a challenge though isn't it? Cars should already be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, before they ever hit the public roads. Behind the scenes during the ADAS development stages, the ADAS systems are trained and validated in simulation environments. This will help to improve the performance of self-driving and driver assistance systems, reassuring human drivers that their cars will perform well in complex and unfamiliar situations. By tracking where human drivers prefer to take control or tend to take over the controls or feel uncomfortable, car makers can identify situations where the systems might need additional training. These events can be map matched so that the OEM can easily identify hundreds of similar scenes and scenarios to use in their training. Training and validation in simulated environments can also help recreate challenging situations, allowing ADAS and autonomous systems to train, respond and improve over time. Doing this virtually enables the OEMs to do this at a massive scale well beyond what would have been possible with real world drives. The map is used as a source to ensure that the vehicle is trained in realistic virtual environments. But it is not just machines that provide feedback to boost the performance of self-driving systems: it's also vital to incorporate human feedback. Usage analytics allow car makers to home in on the situations in which human drivers feel uncomfortable, and where drivers need more support. By monitoring this information, manufacturers can ensure that if one user does not enjoy the experience, the next user is better served, redefining the vehicle's operational design domain (ODD) which encodes what level of support drivers get. When it comes to trust then, there are risks that can be mitigated as this technology is further developed? Trust must be earned, and car makers have a long road ahead and risk damaging it quickly if they don't adopt the right technology. Mapping software has a vital role to play to add to resilience and safety, as do systems that clearly communicate what is happening, and a gradual approach is vital to building this trust over time. Once drivers understand the work that maps and broader software is doing to keep them safe, they will be more inclined to trust their increasingly self-sufficient vehicles, and ready to enjoy the roads of Timmer is an experienced product and technology leader with a track record of driving innovation across industries, including automotive, consumer electronics, and healthcare information technology. With expertise in product management, innovation strategy, and both hardware and software development, he has successfully led multidisciplinary teams, integrating user experience (UX) design with strategic product development. Currently serving as Vice President of Product Management – Head of Automotive Solutions at HERE Technologies, Remco leads product strategy and technology initiatives that shape the future of location intelligence in the Software-Defined Vehicle era. "HERE on building trust in self-driving technology" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Newsweek
05-05-2025
- Automotive
- Newsweek
AI Is Changing the Way Mapmakers Digitize Our World for Automation
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Sixty-five to seventy percent of the automotive market is served by a company few outside the industry have heard of, but one that makes a monumental impact on drivers' daily journeys. For 40 years, Here Technologies has been digitizing maps. Over that time, mapping technology has moved from navigation to a necessary tool in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). "We invented digital map making, and we [have] continuously perfected [that process] over those 40 years. As you can imagine, that has changed a lot. In the past, people were simply digitizing physical maps, and now we are leveraging tens of millions of connected vehicles worth of sensor data that we transform into a digital map," Remco Timmer, senior vice president of product management at Here Technologies told Newsweek. While mapping for in-car navigation systems is still a large part of the company's business, in recent years, the market has diversified as new technology has come into demand. "Globally, we're, by far, number one serving the map for the navigation use case in vehicles, not only passenger vehicles, also commercial vehicles, and fleet operators. Big companies out there, big transport and logistics companies, are leveraging our map to plan logistics operations and to keep track of vehicles and goods that are on the road," Timmer said. Artificial intelligence (AI) is helping Here Technologies stay at the forefront of mapping innovation. "If you're a digital company, you need to continuously reinvent yourself, otherwise you become obsolete very fast. So, we continuously reinvent ourselves," he said. A handout image from Here Technologies showing a rendering of advanced driver safety system obstacle detection. A handout image from Here Technologies showing a rendering of advanced driver safety system obstacle detection. Here Technologies The era of software-defined vehicles, which the automotive industry is starting to enter, is creating new opportunities for the company. Before, automakers would purchase technology and skin it with their own graphics and branded identity. Now, integration is deeper. Timmer said: "The software becomes a critical part of how to manifest the brand and the brand experience, and the software is really the thing that provides the convenience for the users. As a consequence, we see that original equipment manufacturers are purchasing differently, and they are looking for very, very reliable, pre-integrated software stacks. But, also stacks that can still be adjusted and customized and configured in such a way that they can differentiate from the competition." Having Here's technology integrated in a software stack allows it to be updated remotely, over the air, just as many of the software and hardware components of a vehicle are made more modern. This is a significant departure from the way updating mapping information used to occur. There have been three generations of modern mapping technology, Timmer said. The Download Era featured digital maps that were printed on physical mediums like CDs and hard drives. It could take years to get a map in a car from the time it was made. Car owners would have to be notified of an update and take their car to a dealership to have it installed. About a decade ago, Here Technologies started offering maps that could be streamed online. Most vehicles on the road are equipped with this era of technology. Those maps are typically updated weekly. "We have over 800 attributes in our map, so not everything is updated at the same frequency, but pretty much every week, there's a fresh map at that platform endpoint," Timmer said. In the immediate future is the Live Map Era. This era allows the application program interface (API) to respond in real time to signals sent to it from vehicles that indicate that a map may be inaccurate. Timmer calls this "noise." He said: "It's a lot of noise that we get back. And then we need to find the signal in that noise to say, 'Indeed, the map might be off.' And then we run a campaign to acquire the data that we then use to update the map accordingly. We're basically increasing the speed of this feedback loop and increasing the speed of the map adoption [in this era]." New vehicles have sensor stacks that can enhance users' mapping experiences. They can detect new signs, road regulations and streets. All the gathered data is anonymized and needs to be verified. Here Technologies employs a team that references multiple sources of information before changing a map, including aerial photography, satellite images and sensor data. They also work with local governments to better understand and convey local rules and sign conventions. "There's new data around the old data [that is] still super relevant, and the old ways of making my app are still very relevant," Timmer said. But artificial intelligence is leading the way into the future, and it has been for 20 years. "For us, that was the most normal thing. For the last 20 years we were leveraging AI throughout the way we make a map. There wouldn't be any other way to keep the map of the world up to date. If you would want to have humans encode the entire world, it would be way too slow," he said. What native navigation systems, like what Here Technologies sells to automakers, lack is real time incident and obstacle reporting, something that apps like Waze inherently have. It's something Timmer admits is frustrating. A hand holding a smartphone featuring the Here WeGo app for fleet teams. A hand holding a smartphone featuring the Here WeGo app for fleet teams. Here Technologies The new era of mapping will ideally lead to "an equally or much better native navigation experience into a vehicle, because it can actually leverage a lot of vehicle sensing data along the way. It would be much more powerful. It would be aware of the vehicle state," Timmer said. "These products take a while to enter into the vehicles of today, and I think the innovation cycle of original equipment manufacturers was typically taking so long that it would take four or five, up to seven years for this kind of technology to enter the market." Today, new vehicle innovation cycles are shortening thanks to competition from Chinese manufacturers and the adoption of AI in the design studio, technology labs and crash testing facilities. And, ADAS technology is rapidly improving. Quickly updated navigation data aids the development of those technologies, helping instill confidence in a more autonomized driving future. Here has a 10-year infrastructure agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support its AI-powered, livestreaming map and location services. Backed by that infrastructure, the company has developed two products to further its portfolio. Here SceneXtract is a tool that combines AI models, natural language processing and high-definition 3D map data to create simulated real-world driving scenes to test ADAS and automated driving technologies. Here AI Assistant is designed to transform personalized travel planning by introducing a proprietary, generative AI vehicle guidance assistant that can respond to complex queries from natural language props.
