That sounds like some airline pilots! How do you get that job? A job where you can sleep while getting paid, that is a job lots of people would enjoy having!
Ford engineers have recently been falling asleep while sitting at the wheel of the self-driving cars according to new research found by the company. Testers who had been assessing the level 3 or the conditional autonomy cars were all prone to sleeping even when there were other people in the cars or when there were stimuli like vibrating seats and buzzers being used.
You would think the other people in the car would wake them up. Though they could be asleep too! Though it would be awesome to observe a computer at work like that!
Level 3
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Raj Nair, the chief of product development at Ford, recently said that the engineers were well trained, and were observing what is happening. But it is the nature of humans that when they begin to trust vehicles so much more that they do not have to pay that much attention. Hopefully this does not lead to someone getting hurt after a car crash though.
This is why Ford has now decided not to introduce level 3 cars and are only going to be producing level 5 cars which are fully autonomous. They are expected to make their debut on the streets in 2021.
Waymo
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There was also the Waymo car project which had been spearheaded by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, where a similar conclusion had been reached, and they are not going to be releasing any of the hybrid cars either.
The CEO of Waymo, John Krafcik said that level 3 may just turn out to be a myth. There is a spectrum for cars which has levels from 0-5 where level 3 gives a car autonomy, but still requires a driver to take control of the wheel within 10 seconds when necessary.
The car can monitor the complete driving environment, but there will always be a need to fall back on humans. Level 0 reflects regular cars that are operated by humans while level 5 reflects systems which are completely automated.
Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen Audi have all planned to introduce a level 3 vehicle by the latest which would have been in 2018?right around the corner! While these models would require drivers to step in and take control in as little as 10 seconds, there are Honda and Nissan models that will not need drivers to take control for as much as 30 seconds.
How can a computer know they will need help in 30 seconds? Interesting!
Focus Issues
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The level 3 models make use of monitors in order to determine the amount of focus the driver has which has also led to the question of self-driving or hybrid human cars being worth the trouble to design and build at all.
There is already evidence to show that level 3 leads to an increase in traffic accidents. But there isn't enough evidence to show that it is something which needs to be prohibited, though. That being said, it does pose some safety concerns.
Advocates of level 3 say that human backups are required for safety, and this will also let consumers get more comfortable with the technology which is eventually going to take the wheel away from their hands completely which again is level 5.
This is supposed to help make it easier for consumers to understand how it works, and to get them to trust the technology instead of going ahead with the full system right from the get-go which again is what level 5 is.
Scenarios to Consider
It is the legal liability which might also be the reason automakers are trying to put the wheel in the hands of the driver during emergencies. But it doesn't look like the regulators are ready to turn over on this issue too easily. One thing which everyone is agreeing about though is that repeated requests for human intervention could damage the entire autonomous experience. So this is some of the reasoning why car makers are considering leaping ahead to level 5 right off the bat.
A human being should be ready to take control though in 10 seconds even if they have been fully sleeping. But what if they do not have their shoes on? What if one of their shoes is wedged between the gas and brake pedal for instance? The point is, there are many scenarios to consider when the driver’s seat becomes someone’s bed!