{"id":209,"date":"2019-08-08T06:14:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T03:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dlshad.net\/?p=209"},"modified":"2019-08-08T06:14:05","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T03:14:05","slug":"whitepaper-on-the-current-status-of-self-driving-trucks-and-its-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dlshad.net\/whitepaper-on-the-current-status-of-self-driving-trucks-and-its-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitepaper on: The current status of Self-Driving Trucks and its challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Corresponding author: Dlshad Othman\n(e-mail: <\/em>do2897@ou.ac.uk<\/a><\/em>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Date of publication: 08\/07\/2019,\nwritten on 02\/01\/2018<\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto the American Trucking Associations, the shortage of qualified truck drivers\nin 2019 reached the level of 59,500 drivers and it will increase to 160,000 by\n2028<\/a>[1]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shortage created a good opportunity for self-driving car\nmakers, to navigate the market and seek the opportunity to manufacture\nself-driving trucks, that can fill the gap and introduce new products to the\nmarket, that will allow moving trucks on the highways with limited interactions\nfrom drivers or without a driver, by building full automated self-driving\ntrucks (Halsey 2017). Self-driving trucks are already being tested in\nthe U.S., in 2016, Otto\u2019s first self-driving truck successfully delivered a\nshipment of beer on a 120-mile trip, while the driver is setting in the\nbackseat and observing the behaviour of the automated truck (Davies 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The self-driving vehicles\nindustry in general is on the rise, with 44 companies working on building their\nown autonomous cars (Cbinsights 2017), meanwhile companies like Daimler, Otto,\nTesla and Volvo are working on producing new self-driving trucks with different\nlevels of automations that range between assisting the driver to increase their\nsafety, to a full autonomous truck (Muoio 2017). The American Society of Automotive Engineers identified six different\nlevels of vehicle automation, starting with zero which has no automation to\nfive with full automation (SAE International 2016). Nowadays, the market offers\ntrucks at level one with limited driver assistance technology, and many\nresearch and development efforts are happening to build and introduce new\ntechnologies, hoping that will produce higher level of automated trucks,\nintroducing new market and regulation challenges.There is no big difference between the required technology to\nbuild an autonomous car or a truck, they are both relying on advanced machine\nlearning, sensors and communication systems as the base of a complex system\nthat will make the care make decisions on the road. On the other hand,\ndifferences will start to emerge between both products when assessing the\npotential markets and trying to understand the legislative frameworks for both\nthe business and transportation laws and regulations (Halsey 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past seven years, 29 U.S states passed their own laws and\nregulations that govern self-driving vehicles. In 2017, the U.S Congress passed\nthe (SELF DRIVE Act<\/em>), to cover the\nself-driving cars regulations on the federal level. However, due to the\ncomplexity of the issue, and the pushback from the unions, the act didn\u2019t\nregulate the self-driving trucks, and only passed regulations related to\npersonal cars (\u201cSelf-Driving Vehicles\nEnacted Legislation\u201d 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Truck industry in the U.S sees self-driving\ntrucks as a threat to the 3.5 million truck drivers (Hassler 2017) which\nalready mobilized drivers and unions to advocate against autonomous trucks. On\nthe other hand, a more possibly damaging cyber threat is growing, in parallel with the rise of computer\ncontrols and digital communications over cars, and several proofs of concepts took place in the\nlast couple years (Tuttle 2017). beside all of that, there will be a need to improve the infrastructure of roads and\nhighways before allowing trucks on the road. The market of self-driving trucks is promising.\nCompanies like Uber, Amazon, USPS, UPS and PepsiCo are funding R&D and\nper-ordering trucks from manufacturers that announced plans to produce\nself-driving trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology\nroadmap<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To create a roadmap that captures the status of\nself-driving trucks and maps the possibilities and challenges of its future, flexibility is needed.\nHence, roadmaps are flexible when it comes to their format,\npurpose and use (Phaal et al 2004). This flexibility will allow adopting and\nsomehow customizing the roadmap to reflect the best visualization of\nself-driving trucks evaluation process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nfirst layer of the map is the Level of\nAutomation<\/em> which represent milestones and eras of self-driving trucks, in\nother words \u201clevels of vehicle automation\u201d according to SAE International. Bars\nwere used to present the level of automation, and to show the available\ntechnologies at a specific time. <\/strong>The end goal of this map is the actual product\nwhich is placed on the second layer of the roadmap, to\nunderstand the technology evaluation, and\nmarket and legislative are at the lower\nlayers.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Figure.\n1. Self-driving Trucks RoadMap<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmapping process for Self-driving trucks has different current and future\nproduct characteristics, ranging from partly automated to fully automated\nproducts. Capturing the evaluation of the involved technologies and the\nchallenges\nare represented in multiple layers or format (a) (Phaal et al 2004)\nthat can be expanded and has sublayers roadmap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure.\n1<\/em><\/strong>. Shows a multiple-layers roadmap for self-driving trucks that was\ndesigned after an extensive research on self-driving history, current status\nand its future. This can be seen in the \u2018Level\nof Automation<\/em>\u2019 or milestones layer that shows different eras of\nself-driving, starting with the current level that products are being\nmanufactured at \u2018Driver Assistance\u2019 which by itself represent a different level\nof truck\nautonomous that. For example, Ford F150\ntruck<\/em>, was the first truck introduced (Truck Adaptive Cruise Control System) which\nrepresent the least advanced technology in driver assistance level compared to Volvo Refuse Truck<\/em> which can move the\nsteering wheel and make some decisions, as the most advanced in the driver assistance\nlevel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nthe technology is advanced today, and several tests took place on the streets for\nauto-driving trucks – which can be seen on the roadmap – other challenges are\nslowing the technology readiness and prevent the process from moving forward to\nan advanced era of automation. These challenges can be found in at least one out of\nfour domains as Heslop et al. (2001) suggested, which can shape the strength of the technology<\/em>.<\/em> For example, the concept of self-driving\nin general is a new one, and it\u2019s mostly relying on machine cumulative learning,<\/em> which is still elementary and limited\nto only handle easy driving tasks, which puts technology builders in front of the learning\nchallenge, which takes time and effort. On the other hand, sensors\nare still not advanced enough to function during bad weather.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmarket of self-driving trucks is the most important element in the process,\nwhich is not the case in self-driving cars as the decision at the end will be\npersonal compared to\nself-driving trucks that needs a market approval, adoption and flexibility from\ntrucks manufacturers and future clients. This can be done by capturing how the market\nis engaging with the topic to comprehend the size of investment that will be\nput in R&D at this stage and the production in the future. The map captures\nthe \u2018The Market Attractiveness\u2019<\/em>\n(Heslop et al. 2001) including current and future deals and how such deals and\ndemand are pushing the development of self-driving trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governments\nhave power over businesses and manufacturers and they regulate transportation\nwhich puts the legal\/legislative aspect of self-driving trucks in a very\nessential position. Especially, that there are already many loud voices against\nregulating self-driving trucks, mainly fuelled by fear of drivers losing their jobs and cyber\nsecurity threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the\ngovernment is dealing with the issue and how new government bodies are being\nformed for this purpose, can impact the technology and future products. Therefore,\nplacing them on the roadmap can show the direct impact on the final product and\nits future development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key challenges and recommendation for the\ntechnology <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n