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Big Brother takes the wheel
Page 49
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We test out a futuristic system that manages your vehicle's speed and driveline according to the road features up ahead. But is it really progress?
Words: Colin Barnett
A decade ago, a press officer for a well-known truck-maker was in the habit of sending out spoof press releases on April Fools' Day. One year's release concerned a new sat-nav-cum-cruise-control system that could spot hills and bends and adjust your truck's progress. Well, it's here, we've driven it — and no, this isn't a wind-up!
Sentience, as the project is named, aims to establish "the use of electronic horizon data to improve vehicle efficiency:7k project is led by innovITS, a Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR)funded think tank to promote UK telematics and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) capability Although you've probably never heard of innovITS, its partners are better known and comprise Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Ricardo. Orange,TRL and Ordnance Survey.
Since a key part of the project is to improve the efficiency of hybrid vehicles, the prototype vehicle is an American Ford Escape Hybrid SUV, which was provided by KR at the beginning of the project when it was still part of the Ford empire. Although tested on a light vehicle, the operating principles would be the same for HGVs.
Testing the system
The driver interface — including the sat-nay display — and communications are handled by a Nokia N95 phone, incorporating technology developed by Orange and Ricardo. Ordnance Survey provides the advanced mapping data that enables the system to look ahead to the "electronic horizon" and anticipate road features .To allow for data loss in this early version,5km of look-ahead is provided, but 2.5km has been calculated as the optimum. Sentience in its current state focuses on three areas: • Enhanced Acceleration/Deceleration (EAD) controls vehicle speed by referring to downloaded information on statutory speed limits and influences such as bends.
• Optimised Engine Load (OED) consults the electronic horizon and manages the hybrid driveline to give the highest possible efficiency. For example, it could utilise stored electrical energy to drive up a hill, knowing there's a sufficient downhill stretch to recover that energy, and avoid using the internal combustion engine.
• Enhanced Air Conditioning (EAC) matches cabin cooling requirements to current and predicted road conditions. Trials, on a road route around Cambridge and on a closed road route at TRL near Bracknell, show fuel savings between 5% and 24%, with a potential projected saving across the UK vehicle pare of 14%.
We had a drive in the prototype around the TRL track, and found that if this is driving in the future, it's going to be very different. With the route programmed and the hybrid slinking away with cruise control engaged, all we had to do was steer. A mile or so of simulated city was negotiated easily, but the programming for one bend was a bit speedy. If the driver can stay awake, he needs to look out for unprogrammed hazards and override the system.
Sentience does what it claims to do, hut that's no more than a driver trained to a high enough level could achieve. We left feeling that it promises to de-skill driving even more than it has been already, while introducing the possibility of even more state control.