Uber seeks to resume AV trials nearly eight months after Arizona fatality
Uber wants to resume testing its self-driving cars on public roads nearly eight months after one of its autonomous vehicles (AV) killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
The ride-hailing company has released a voluntary safety report to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which includes safety enhancements to help prevent crashes and fatalities.
Uber says its AVs would include two mission specialists – employees who have completed advanced training courses in self-driving vehicle operations. The
November 6, 2018
Read time: 2 mins
8336 Uber wants to resume testing its self-driving cars on public roads nearly eight months after one of its autonomous vehicles (AV) killed a %$Linker: 2Internal<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />4342720link-external pedestrianfalse/categories/utc/news/ubers-autonomous-taxi-kills-pedestrian-north-american-trials-suspended/falsefalse%> in Arizona.
The ride-hailing company has released a voluntary safety %$Linker: 2External<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />000link-external reportfalsehttps://uber.app.box.com/v/UberATGSafetyReportfalsefalse%> to the US 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which includes safety enhancements to help prevent crashes and fatalities.
Uber says its AVs would include two mission specialists – employees who have completed advanced training courses in self-driving vehicle operations. The training includes modules on distracted driving and a preventive fatigue monitoring programme.
In %$Linker: 2Internal<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />4361890link-external Julyfalse/categories/location-based-systems/news/ubers-self-driving-cars-resume-trials-in-pittsburgh-in-manual-mode/falsefalse%>, the company’s mission specialists began manually driving Uber’s AVs on public roads in Pittsburgh to trial new safeguards which are expected to improve vehicle safety and performance.
One mission specialist remained behind the wheel to maintain the vehicle’s safety while the other documented notable events in the passenger seat.
According to Uber, all self-driving vehicles are now equipped with a third-party driver monitoring system and feature improved system latency to detect objects and actors sooner and react faster.
In the introduction of the report, Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO says the company has conducted a review of Uber Advanced Technologies Group’s safety approaches, system development and culture.
“We continue to support the 5628 National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the Tempe crash. We have taken a measured, phased approach to returning to on-road testing, starting first with manual driving in Pittsburgh,” Khosrowshahi adds.
Khosrowshahi emphasises that Uber has committed to deliver the safety report before returning to on-road testing in self-driving mode and will only go back on the road once the improved process has been implemented.
The deadline for paper and special interest session proposal submissions for the ITS European Congress and Exhibition in Helsinki has been extended to midnight on 14 January. We have already received many valuable submissions and we thank you for your contributions.
Papers and special interest session proposals should be submitted through the submission portal, which also provides the submission guidelines.
For further details on the congress and exhibition, visit the Congress website.
A non-profit research consortium dedicated to automotive cyber security, Future of Automotive Security Technology Research (FASTR), has announced the availability of the Automotive Industry Guidelines for Secure Over-the-Air Updates. These guidelines are intended to assist automotive manufacturers and others involved in evaluating platforms for secure updates, describing the threat models, providing recommended cryptographic algorithms and detailing a step-by-step checklist for evaluating state of the art