How to fasten the "seat belt" for automatic driving?

In the cool early autumn , The hot autopilot track opened “ cool ” Pattern . In recent days, , National Highway Traffic Safety Administration （NHTSA） Announce Tesla's automatic system （Auopilot） Officially launch a safety investigation ; Weilai automobile has also been involved in the storm of automatic driving safety accidents ; Domestic mainstream media 《 The economic journal, 》 The title is “ Autopilot , It's not as fragrant as you think ” Comments on …… When the trust crisis touches the public's nervous again , The autonomous driving industry, which is making great strides forward, should slow down , Think about how to break through the dilemma .

Public data display , Google's autopilot technology company Waymo Self driving vehicle 2019 Since, it has accumulated 610 Thousands of miles （982 Thousands of kilometers ） In the automatic driving mileage of 18 There was an accident , And then there is 29 A potential accident avoided by the intervention of the safety officer . tesla 《2020 Vehicle safety report for the fourth quarter of 》 Show , Use an autonomous vehicle every time you drive 345 A car accident will happen ten thousand miles . Since the automatic driving technology began to land , Questions about its safety have never stopped .

earlier , Huawei's intelligent car solution BU Su Jing, a former executive, once published “ Tesla killing theory ”——“ When machines enter human society and coexist with humans , Machines are bound to cause an accident rate , The worst thing to say is ‘ kill ’.” The remark once caused an uproar . An industry insider who has long paid attention to the automatic driving industry is very interested in 《 China electronic news 》 The reporter said ：“ There are too many safety problems in automatic driving , Than what degree of security is safe enough , At present, there is no clear parameter or fixed index to measure ; In the age of interconnection , Safety of driving data 、 Privacy issues are difficult to protect . in addition , Autonomous driving also faces many ethical problems , For example, when an accident cannot be avoided, saving passengers or passers-by, and the division of rights and responsibilities between vehicles and people , These problems always fail to find the optimal solution .”

“ actually , The safety problem of automatic driving can never be completely solved , All we can do is to reduce the potential security risks as much as possible .” Lu Wenliang, a distinguished researcher in the automotive industry of the industrial science and technology innovation center of the Strategic Consulting Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is accepting 《 China electronic news 》 The reporter pointed out in the interview ,“ This is a systematic problem , Involving Automotive Software and hardware 、 Functional network 、 Rules, standards and other aspects , Only by constantly discovering new problems , Continuous improvement in the iterative process , To increase the safety of automatic driving .”

Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the national passenger car market information joint committee, told 《 China electronic news 》 The reporter said ：“ The current automatic driving technology can not deal with all kinds of obstacles , Especially fixed obstacles , And accurately identify and effectively judge complex environmental risks .” Mass production of intelligent driving is still in the stage of L2 Level auxiliary driving stage , The control of the vehicle is still in the hands of the driver , Distance realization L3 Obviously, there is still a long way to go before the first-class real automatic driving technology comes to the ground .

according to the understanding of , At present, most L2 The level of assisted driving uses a camera + The technical path of millimeter wave sensor . Radar and lidar sensors can collect a large amount of data through radio wave technology , With the support of the algorithm, it provides a method for cars to detect and avoid road obstacles , But because it's expensive , There are no mass-produced vehicles equipped with lidar on the market all over the world .

Car building forces are constantly trying to explore new solutions , But the effect is not ideal . for example , Tesla chose the focus camera vision centric solution to reduce costs . However , Compared with radar and lidar sensors , Pure visual perception system is difficult to recognize road conditions in extreme weather , Security has been questioned . Tesla has also been investigated by U.S. regulators due to frequent safety accidents .

Many experts think , Improving vehicle cognition requires stronger computing performance support . One side , Multi-sensor fusion is the inevitable trend of automatic driving . But most of the cars now carry ADAS（ Advanced driving AIDS ）, Including rear camera 、360 Degree panoramic system 、 The radar and front camera operate independently , To achieve fusion, the key is that the algorithm should be optimized enough , Data processing speed should be fast enough and good fault tolerance , Only in this way can we ensure the rapidity and correctness of the final decision .

On the other hand , To achieve true autopilot , Not only to be smart , And the road coordination . If all kinds of radar 、 Sensors such as cameras are of cars “ eyes ”, The algorithm is equivalent to the autopilot system “ The brain ”. Experts point out that ,“ The Internet of vehicles will ‘ people 、 vehicle 、 road 、 cloud ’ Traffic participation elements are organically linked , This has a great impact on the environmental perception of autonomous vehicles 、 Higher requirements are put forward for the ability of calculation, decision-making and control execution . We must use more rigorous algorithmic logic 、 More powerful computing power to support automatic driving , This is a very long and heavy project .” 

From the perspective of the overall development of the industry , Lu Wenliang said ：“ Everyone is moving up from assisted driving , Gradually add functions , Achieve a higher level of automatic driving .” But there are also views that , Technically speaking ,L3 It is necessary to study automatic driving above level , But in the actual application scenario , Whether the large-scale landing of this high-level automatic driving technology is necessary still needs calm thinking , Don't rush .“ Just as we discuss whether artificial intelligence should replace real manpower , Whether autonomous driving technology should be used to replace human drivers also needs a question mark .” Lu Wenliang said .

Even musk, who has always taken a radical attitude in the field of automatic driving, has to admit it himself , It is more difficult to develop a truly safe and reliable autopilot than he thought . actually , Autonomous driving technology “ childbirth ”、 The reason for the frequent occurrence of safety accidents is not only reflected in the technical realization , And relevant laws and regulations are not perfect 、 Industry standards are missing 、 All kinds of market chaos caused by capital speculation have a great relationship .

Cao Jianfeng, a senior researcher at Tencent Research Institute, said in an interview ：“ automobile 、 Supervision and regulations in road traffic and other fields, including driver qualification 、 admittance 、 responsibility 、 Insurance lags behind , It hinders the commercial landing of intelligent Internet connected vehicles .” Cui Dongshu also pointed out that ：“ There are no rules , There is no admittance and product management specification , Many enterprises dare not move forward , And the investment in automobile products is huge , If the technical direction and compliance cannot meet the relevant national requirements , It will cost a lot to change later .”

meanwhile , Affected by the excessive pursuit of capital , Excessive marketing in the market 、 Exaggerated propaganda and other chaos , Cause the user to “ Auxiliary driving ” and “ Autopilot ” There are misunderstandings in the cognition of .“ Businesses are generally suspected of exaggerating publicity , Car owners are influenced by this publicity orientation , Misjudge the current level of automatic driving technology , I think assisted driving can liberate my hands .” AI media consultation CEO Zhang Yi, also chief analyst, said ,“ Automobile safety concerns life safety , Cannot repair or restart , It should not be a publicity stunt .” Ideal car founder Li would like to appeal , The media and industry organizations shall unify the standard of Chinese terms of automatic driving , Avoid the misunderstanding caused by exaggerated publicity . He thinks that ：“ Exercise restraint in promotion , Invest in technology , For users 、 industry 、 Enterprises have long-term benefits .”

The safety of automatic driving involves all aspects of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain . In order to further standardize the market order , The Ministry of industry and information technology has successively issued 《 Automobile driving automation classification 》《 Opinions on strengthening the management of intelligent networked automobile production enterprises and product access 》《 Several regulations on vehicle data security management （ On a trial basis ）》 And so on , And actively deploy and carry out the pilot work of Internet of vehicles identity authentication and security trust , Call on Government 、 production 、 Research from all walks of life , From the entry criteria 、 Product management and testing 、 Data security 、OTA Upgrade and other dimensions , Promote the development of intelligent networked automobile industry in an all-round way .

Lu Wenliang commented that ：“ related policy 、 Improvement of laws and regulations , It sets a clear boundary for all participants in the automatic driving track , So that they can ‘ Safety red line ’ Explore technological innovation and commercial landing within the scope of , It provides space for the safe development of the whole industrial chain .”“ This also prevents car companies from blindly following the trend to a certain extent , Bring the immature automatic driving function to the market , Verifying the risks of technology at the expense of consumers .” Cui Dongshu said ,“ We need more time to accumulate .”