It is dangerous to drive on a road with water and snow. Many drivers have experienced water taxiing or sudden loss of traction in bad weather such as rain, snow and ice. This situation can be terrible, especially When there are other cars driving nearby, the self-driving car will also encounter the same meteorological danger as ordinary cars. Is it spared?
Humans have a certain perception and experience of changing weather conditions, which helps them learn how to drive their cars properly and safely. However, driverless cars do not have a system to sense the weather, global auto parts supply Business Bosch is working with Finnish weather forecaster Forcera to solve this problem by alerting the self-driving car itself and other autonomous vehicles in the vicinity to deal with dangerous situations such as icing that may affect vehicle driving.
Bosch has developed a system called 'Intuitive Feeling' for self-driving cars. Professional racers usually use this method when driving a car on the track. It refers to the contact between the thigh and the driver's seat. Feel the road condition and manipulate the car according to the road conditions.
Dr. Dirk Hauser, a member of the Bosch Management Committee, said: 'Whether it is wet road, snow, ice, as long as our road condition prediction service is used, we can be alert to danger before the crisis occurs. ' We got cooperation here. The help of the weather data provided by the partner Forcera. This means that an autonomous car can know exactly where it can drive automatically and how to drive.
With this data, Bosch can adjust the autopilot system. The company believes that the more accurate the road hazard prediction and positioning, the easier it is to keep the autopilot system running smoothly and safely.
Until the L4 level of automatic driving, whether the car can drive safely and automatically depends on whether the correct decision can be made on the road type, speed and environment. The future autonomous driving will also be based on the predicted road condition service provided by Bosch.
The Finnish Weather Forecasting Centre is one of the world's leading providers of weather information and has 20 years of experience in predicting road weather conditions. Bosch says that Finnish meteorologists provide the most accurate road weather data in the world.
'The combination of 'Forcera and Bosch' professionalism will bring a new era of road condition prediction.' Unlike the weather forecast of the media, Bosch Road Condition Forecasting Services considers a variety of possible meteorological hazard scenarios.
The Bosch Road Meteorological Service Program will be launched globally in 2020 and will initially be based on weather data. As more and more connected cars appear on the road, more and more vehicle data will enhance this service.
This means that autonomous vehicles will have enough time to adapt to its driving style, rather than relying on human drivers to take over when the first signs of poor road conditions occur.
For example, if the vehicle is driving in the rain, the vehicle will safely reduce the speed in advance, so that it can reduce the risk of water taxiing and safely stop at any time, which will lead to safer travel and smooth and comfortable driving for passengers. Experience.
Connected cars: Using vehicle data to predict road conditions
For road condition forecasting services, Bosch will be based on the concept of connected car data, which is expected to be launched in 2020. However, Bosch realizes that there may not be enough connected cars on the road to collect enough data.
Bosch estimates that only 20 million connected cars in Europe will cover about 80,000 kilometers of highways. Therefore, road weather predictions will be the only reliable source of information about the road conditions, especially in rural areas with less traffic.
As the number of connected vehicles on the road increases, Bosch will supplement its road condition prediction service system with the collected vehicle data. These data will include detailed information retrieved from the car's CAN bus network (the car's central data network). Including the ability to detect outdoor temperature, speed, or windshield wiper, headlight usage.
These data will be uploaded to Bosch's cloud through the back-end servers of their respective car manufacturers. In addition, Bosch will prejudge conventional crisis interventions through each automotive electronic stability control system (ESC). Using mathematical methods, engineers It is possible to measure the road surface friction coefficient of each wheel and the state of each wheel.
When all these data are combined and evaluated, it is possible to guide safer driving by sharing the response of each vehicle to the hazardous environment. With these vehicle data, the vehicle's control system can be adjusted in advance to reduce the risk of weather-related road conditions. happened.
Through this new collaboration, the two companies hope that the system will meet the safety standards required for autonomous driving.