We know how much German automakers love the word “dynamic,” and now, as part of a new research project led by Volkswagen, they’re using it to describe next-gen autonomous systems. So far, the few autonomous German cars we’ve seen have only required a human driver as an emergency backup. But Volkswagen, teaming up with BMW, Fiat, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Opel, PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Renault, and Volvo, wants autonomous cars “in which the level of automation is dynamically adapted to the situation and driver status.” In other words, they’d like to give us some control behind the wheel. Crazy, right?
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The European Union will fund the project, called AdaptIVe (Automated Driving Applications & Technologies for Intelligent Vehicles), over the next three-and-a-half years for a total of €25 million (roughly $33.8 million at today’s exchange rates). Several universities and suppliers like Bosch, Continental, and Delphi are also in the mix. In total, seven cars and one truck will experiment with new sensors, software, and wireless networks known as vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication to make autonomous cars more aware of their surroundings—and when and if they should take control from a driver.
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In 2011, Volkswagen, Volvo, and Continental finished a similar EU-funded project called HAVEit (Highly Automated Vehicles for intelligent transport) that aided yielded, among other advances, Continental’s Traffic Jam Assistant now optional on the 2014 BMW X5.
Simultaneously, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said that it would push to mandate vehicle-to-vehicle communication on future new cars. The federal agency finished a year-long test of 3000 connected cars on public roads in Ann Arbor, Michigan, last year and will publish its results in the next few weeks.