Automation and assistance in trucks and cars: Diversity versus homogenization?

Kurzfassung

Progress in automation, assistance and embedded systems keeps on changing transport systems like aircraft, trains, trucks and cars significantly. In the ground vehicle domain, a new quantum leap seams possible, that has parallels to the aviation domain more than three decades ago, with modern airplanes being able to fly highly autonomous in almost all flight phases: After the successful implementation of safety functions like ESP and “comfort systems” like ACC into the ground vehicle market, more capable systems like the e-brakes or lane keeping system were recently introduced. More automated assistance systems are already in the stage of pre-development, completely or highly automated vehicles have already been demonstrated as prototypes. With this development, the role of vehicles and operators might change: From a “simple” extension of the operator’s physical capabilities to move, vehicles are starting to develop a rudimentary intelligence and will provide extension of the operator’s senses and cognition. From a continuously involved driver the operator might change towards a supervisor of a more complex automated or assisted human-machine system. This development from manual driving to automated or assisted driving could be comparably slow but sustaining as the development from stationary to mobile phones over the last two decades: While from a naive standpoint, a mobile phone seems to be just an extension of a classical phone without a cord, most mobile phones are much more complex and diverse. On one hand, this diversity combined with short development cycles enables individuality and a more agile evolution towards better systems. On the other hand, many people complain that they can use only part of the functionality, and that they have to relearn too much when changing between different mobile phone. If we don’t want to have such a situation with automated or assisted transportation systems, we have to address the diversity versus homogenization challenge early enough.