Mr. Shunya (Automated Driving Engineer)
Automatic driving is expected to be a safe and comfortable technology without traffic accidents and congestion. What kind of mechanism is used for automatic driving, and how is the mechanism thought of? Mr. Shunya, who is involved in the development of software for automated driving at an automobile manufacturer, tells us about his work in creating automated driving vehicles.
How does automatic operation work?
3 Steps for Human Driving
In Japan, you cannot drive a car until you turn 18 years old. First, I would like to introduce driving a car to everyone. Driving a car is divided into three major steps. The first is "seeing. You cannot drive with your eyes closed. It is very important to properly check your surroundings with your eyes. Seeing leads to "cognition," the process of taking in the information necessary for driving and understanding it in the brain. Then comes "deciding. Based on the information you see, you decide whether to go straight, left or right, or how to drive. Finally, there is "moving. This involves moving the car in the direction you have decided, such as going this way or making a turn here. Specifically, you move the steering wheel left and right, and step on the gas pedal and brake with your foot to move the car.
Collect, calculate, and manipulate data.
Automated driving is the process of automatically performing the three steps just mentioned. First, for "seeing," three cameras attached to the car take the place of eyes. Radar also checks ahead and behind. The radar also checks ahead and behind the vehicle. Next is "deciding. The third is "moving. This is done by sending the calculated results to the gas pedal, brake, and steering wheel, and the machine operates them very smoothly. This is how automatic driving works.
What kind of work does an automated engineer do?
Engineers are in the business of solving problems with technology. In the case of driving, the second task of "deciding" is a very difficult task for a machine. The engineer's job is to create software to determine the rules for how the car should run. Specifically, I create a program called an algorithm that performs calculations in a computer. I create rules such as, "If the car in front of you is too slow, brake," to prevent accidents. Programming these rules is the job of the automatic driving engineer.
What do you think is the most difficult part of achieving automated driving?
There are so many difficult things to do, but the human mind is very clever, after all. As I mentioned earlier, the process of "deciding" how to drive is very complex, and it is very difficult to incorporate it into an algorithm. A machine cannot understand what the driver wants to do, whether he/she wants to go left or right. This is a very difficult task, and one that has always plagued me.
If automated driving becomes a reality, will people no longer drive?
Even if automated driving becomes more widespread, I do not think it will be possible to eliminate the need for human drivers. There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, it costs a lot of money to install an automatic driving system. I think there are people out there who don't want to have to drive automatically. Also, I myself really like driving, so there are of course people who want to drive by themselves, even if it is not a matter of money. Therefore, I hope that in the future there will be a world where people can freely choose either automatic driving or driving by themselves.
What do you keep in mind when working with automobiles?
A very troubling issue in the automotive industry today is traffic accidents. Right now, there are about 380,000 traffic accidents a year. It is quite rare for a person not to experience an accident in his or her lifetime, and they are happening that frequently. In order to prevent damage from such accidents as much as possible, development of pedestrian protection airbags that inflate on the outside of the car and collision mitigation brakes that automatically apply the brakes when the car is about to collide with an obstacle is now underway. The automobile industry is also working hard to reduce accidents as much as possible.
This article is based on the content of the "Language Park Special Lecture: Ask the Pros! (Sponsored by Gakken Educational, Inc. in cooperation with Blueberry, Inc.
What is Kotoba Park?
It is an online Japanese language study course for elementary school students that develops listening, speaking, and reading skills for 25 minutes per session.
