Bosch Australia faces challenges with autonomy
BY JUSTIN HILLIARD | 8th Apr 2019
WHILE Bosch Australia is edging closer to its first official on-road autonomous trial later in 2019, it is still addressing several key issues, including murky timing, unpredictable drivers, inconsistent legislation and unanswered ethical questions.
Speaking last week at the Australian Auto Aftermarket Expo in Melbourne, Bosch Australia general manager of automotive aftermarket Nikki Gerling was confident that the company “will be at the forefront of this technology”, although she did not commit to firm timing.
“There is a lot of harp about this topic and when is it going to get here and what does it really look like,” she said. “I think there are some instances where it will arrive quite quickly.
“For example, at the moment, in Japan, Bosch is participating in a Robo-Taxi trial. This is where on defined roads following a defined journey – not on a track – taxis are ferrying people backwards and forwards.
“They are fully automated, and they are electrified, and they don’t need a driver.
“At night, they go into a very large shed and the car is fully recalibrated every single evening. Every sensor on that car is calibrated, and the car is charged up, as well.
“It takes hours to do. They’re probably being overly cautious in comparison to what might be needed in the future.”
Ms Gerling added that the “controlled” Robo-Taxi trial is only possible due to its elimination of one key variable: drivers.
“There are no cars with drivers on the same path, because the autonomous car can talk to the other autonomous car and check that they’re not going to bang into each other,” she said.
“But the autonomous car can’t work out what the car with a driver is going to do. So, where they’re separated, this technology is already possible.”
Ms Gerling suggested “it is at least a decade away before we will see significant levels of highly autonomous driving” in urban areas “because of the challenges that come about of having both cars with drivers and cars without drivers in the same physical location”.
“I would expect you will see it, in dedicated areas, earlier than that,” she said. “So, you might have these Robo-Taxis, for example, in Japan.
“Or you might have a particular town in a country like China where they will just tell people what’s going to happen and have a bit more control over the infrastructure of that town and what the population is doing.
“Or you might see it sooner in particular geographical areas, and you might have highways that are dedicated to autonomous driving.
“But my understanding is the real challenge comes about when autonomous cars have to guess what non-autonomous cars are going to do.
“They can talk to each other through connected technology, but they can’t predict what you or I would do, and they may be able to override some of what we do, but I think it will be a big ask to (do so).”
In January, Bosch Australia was granted the first Automatic Driving System (ADS) permit from the Victorian government, allowing it to conduct testing of its highly automated Tesla Model S in various conditions on the state’s high-speed country roads.
Bosch Australia was also awarded $2.3 million for its autonomous program under the Victorian government’s $9 million Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) Trial Grants Program.
Ms Gerling said while the Victorian government is moving in the right direction, even more legislation needs to be passed Australia-wide for autonomy to be fully realised locally.
“I think for it to be truly widespread, or even standard in particular areas, there needs to be legislative framework in order to do it,” she said.
“It was a great step forward for us to get that permit, because until then, even just taking the Tesla out to do any level of testing was very challenging because we had to get multiple parties … to actually agree every time we wanted to.
“The ground-breaking innovation is going to come by putting in it far more (challenging conditions).
“The test track in Anglesea, for example, you can go around and around, you can put obstacles out and see what happens, but … (Bosch) really needs to stress test it. There are different challenges in metro and there’s different challenges in regional areas.”
Nonetheless, Ms Gerling said autonomy will also not become a reality unless other key issues, such as social and ethical, are addressed.
“It’s not singular,” she said. “It’s not just about the technology. It (also) has to be the legislative, the social, some of the ethical questions. You may have the technology, but I don’t think you will have it in widespread use until all the other elements catch up.”
While Ms Gerling could not be drawn on any additional details regarding the on-road autonomous trial, she did say that Bosch Australia continues to “work closely” with the Victorian government ahead of its commencement later this year.
Bosch currently has 4000 engineers working on autonomous projects globally and possess more related patents than any other single company.