Aussie hurdles for autonomous Mercedes

A very special E-Class has been negotiating Victorian roads in a pilot project testing what Mercedes-Benz calls 'Level Two' autonomous driving technology.

And the testing is already yielding results unforeseen by the Benz boffins in Stuttgart.

Autonomous motoring expert Jochen Haab (pictured) has already pinpointed one element of the local driving environment that's unique to Australia and problematical for autonomous car engineers – Melbourne's confronting hook turns.

“That's one of those cases where the car would say: 'Hey, if you want to go there, I know there's a hook turn; you take over,” Haab revealed.

“There are just so many variables; that's something a human can do very [well] – assess complex situations and draw conclusions out of experience and intuition and eyesight...”

It's more complex, according to Haab, than America's famed four-way stop signs.

“That's easy. The car knows better than you who stopped first – and it's always fair.

“The big thing in hook turns is you have to assess two traffic lights. I'm probably not telling any secrets – the next generation [autonomous models] will not have cameras going to the sides [so the car] will not see that intersecting traffic light that I would need to see for me to start when I'm standing in the [intersection].”

Haab anticipates that technology at this level of sophistication is unlikely to be introduced by Benz inside a 10-year timeframe, given the mid-life update for the current W222 S-Class is just months away, and such technology will have to wait for the generation of S-Class after the next one.

Just as an aside, while the S-Class remains the pinnacle of the Benz passenger-car product range, it will continue to be the flag bearer for new technology . There would be many miffed S-Class owners, says Haab, if the neighbours start buying A-Class for a quarter of the cost, but boasting newer technology.

According to the Benz engineer, hook turns – cars making right turns from the left side of an intersection to allow the passage of trams through the intersection unobstructed – call for sensor technology and software that's two or even three autonomous steps above the Level Two systems being tested in Australia currently.

Haab explains that with Level Two “you're still in charge.”

Any testing undertaken – either in the real world on local roads or in laboratories – will play into the development of more sophisticated technology also.

“In parallel we're looking at Level Four and Five,” Haab says, explaining too that the Level Two S-Class update “pays the bill for that.”

Level three is “highly automated” and the car must act on its own initiative for “several seconds”, but ultimately does hand control of the vehicle back to the driver in the case of an event unfolding that's beyond the scope of the system. Witches' hats on a country road or a lolipop school crossing attendant might be examples of that, as are also hook turns. The example Haab gave was entering a tunnel without GPS guidance available.

Level four is “fully automated” and level five is “truly driverless”. As far as Haab is concerned, there's no effective difference, from a technical standpoint, between Four and Five for future Benz vehicles. It makes no difference whether the car is handling its own journey with the driver turned 180 degrees to face his or her rear-seat passengers in conversation, or driving itself with no one on board at all.

There are legislative differences however. In Level Four scenarios, a human driver is still technically responsible for at-fault crashes. But in the case of Level Five motoring, the legal ramifications extend to the car manufacturer if the car collides with something/someone and it can be proved that the autonomous car was at fault.

Having now witnessed Australia's rural roads, Haab is reluctant to admit Level Four autonomous cars could be viable in Australia within the next 10 or 15 years.

“I would be surprised if we saw that within my [working life] and I'm turning 50... unless they raise the retirement age again,” Haab said with a laugh. “In my lifetime, yes.”

Why Oz?
Benz has chosen Australia for the test project for a variety of reasons.

“Australia is an important market but also a market we can learn more about by gathering data from our current systems to help develop our technology for future Mercedes-Benz vehicles,” says Haab.

“This opportunity allows us to further test in a new right-hand-drive market with good roads, signage, and varying conditions within close proximity of urban areas. For example, you can be in a congested traffic situation in the city, and then 30 minutes later be in a rural-type environment with varying conditions.”

Melbourne aint London, in other words.

So far, the experimental E-Class has covered “between one and two thousand [kilometres]” after a week, and the testing has been going well, according to the Benz exec. Local road authorities have been helpful and interested as well, with Haab describing Ausroads as “very open” and talks so far had been “promising”.

Australia is the first market outside Europe, the USA and China for Mercedes-Benz to test the new autonomous systems, ahead of their introduction in the updated S-Class due here in November. Not all the systems will necessarily be available to local buyers, however, with Benz admitting that the flashing LED speed limit signs for school zones are currently “challenging”, as Mercedes-Benz Australia's Senior Manager for Corporate Communications, David McCarthy explained to motoring.com.au on the first day of the 2017 Australian Grand Prix weekend.

While hook turns and school zones (with flashing LED signs) are unprecedented in the experience of Haab, the “quite narrow” Great Ocean Road has thrown the Benz test team a few curve balls too, lacking some of the “parallel” visual prompts that help the car's stereo camera delineate the road from the shoulder – little cues like line markings and guard rails.

McCarthy said that the results of local testing will decide how much of the new technology can be viable in the Aussie-delivered S-Class models.

“This testing is informing that,” he said.

Some of the advanced new features coming to S-Class: