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Negative public opinion could slow down the development of driverless vehicles unless more attention is given to solving the technology’s “softer” challenges, according to academics at Cranfield University.
As the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee launches an inquiry into the future uses of autonomous cars, Professor Phil John, pro-vice-chancellor for aerospace, transport and manufacturing at Cranfield University, stressed the importance of building public confidence around how these vehicles will make decisions and interact with their environment.
“While I am sure the driverless vehicle itself is eminently achievable,” said John. “The real challenge is the softer end of the technology and how we envisage it interacting with the real world. We must ask what behaviours we programme driverless vehicles with. To do so we will have to understand the real-world scenarios it will face and determine how it should respond to that.”
Lord Selborne, the chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said that the inquiry will examine what government is doing to support research into developing autonomous vehicles in the UK, as well as the “real-world implications as these vehicles start to appear on the roads and in the workplace”.
John welcomed the inquiry, but warned that the introduction of driverless vehicles into public areas should not be rushed. “We need time to build up our experience and credibility. The public needs time to accept it,” he said. “If we were to rush too much, the first time an incident happened that the public attributed to the autonomous vehicle, I think confidence would collapse – and that would set the industry back a long way.”
One way to build up experience and credibility would be to look for applications in more controlled situations, such as in agricultural settings or even on motorways where driver behaviour is more predictable, suggested John.
In 2017, Cranfield University will begin testing driverless cars on a “living laboratory” road that runs through its campus. Data gathered from sensors on the road will be used to build up “understanding and confidence” about interactions between the technology, the vehicle and the outside world.
In June this year the first known death to be caused by a self-driving car was reported by US firm Tesla in Florida.