From the Editors
This National Newswatch article by Barrie Kirk lists the top ten things Canada needs to do right now to prepare for the arrival of self-driving cars in Canada. The article provides our recommendations to maximize the benefits and mitigate the downsides arising from AVs. To better understand the impact of AV technology in Canada, a joint report, published by the Conference Board of Canada, CAVCOE and the Van Horne Institute last year, showed that AVs will benefit the Canadian economy by $65B per year. If you have not read the report, here is a link.

Related to this, CAVCOE and CATAAlliance have issued a joint news release urging the Federal Government to help the Canadian technology industry gain a larger share of the $10 Trillion global mobility market. The recommendations are to create the Canadian Automated Vehicle Institute (CAVI) as a public-private partnership, support the creation of an AV cluster in Ottawa, and team with Ontario to create an AV Automation Hub in Toronto.

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AV Related Events
In March 2016, the National Research Council organized an Executive Summit on the Cities of the Future. The Summit brought together experts from different horizons to discuss the challenges that Canadian cities are facing and brainstorm potential solutions on how to re-engineer our urban infrastructure such as transportation, energy, and water and waste management. Autonomous vehicle technology was one of the key points of discussion. The Executive Summary from the meeting is here.

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The Automakers, Tier1s and AV Developers
One of the biggest recent news items has been the Tesla Autopilot crash on May 7, 2016. This was not publicly announced until the end of June. The news brought about some serious reactions from the critics and questions are being asked about the main issue behind the accident. Barrie Kirk posted an op-ed piece on LinkedIn here. Here is an interesting article from the Globe and Mail on this issue with quotes from Barrie. An article in Electronic Engineering lists 6 questions and discusses the limitations of self-driving cars and the need to ensure that these limitations are conveyed to the driver properly. This IEEE Spectrum article emphasizes that one particular sensor is noticeably absent from Tesla Model S and X: a Lidar. Lidars are responsible for building a 360-degree view of the surroundings and most other automakers are using Lidars for self-driving capabilities.

Tech Insider reports that GM's first fully autonomous car will be electric, available to just about anyone, and it could be here before you know it. The company plans to bring its self-driving cars to the masses by launching its first driverless on the Lyft platform, Pam Fletcher, executive chief engineer of autonomous tech at GM, told Tech Insider.

The interest of companies like Google and Tesla in autonomous cars is not news. But this article in Tech Times contrasts the different approach by the two companies in the race for these cars. On the one hand, an innovative player in the auto industry, offers auto pilot feature in its cars right now and is gradually moving to fully autonomous vehicles. Google, on the other hand, is pushing for a fully autonomous vehicle after observing that drivers cannot be trusted in the semi-autonomous mode.

Techcrunch writes: "BMW is teaming up with Mobileye and Intel to work on its first fully autonomous self-driving car, which it plans to ship by 2021, confirming Bloomberg’s report.". Earlier in May, Intel had also signed an agreement with Itseez Inc., a company that contributes software tuning and integration in cars. Read more about this advancement in the Evertiq article here.

The momentum of AVs is spreading like never before and this is clearly visible from the number of startups aiming to capitalize on the big opportunity market AV industry has to offer. Last month we mentioned Zoox, a Silicon Valley startup that is now valued at over $1 Billion. Pearl Auto is another startup that aims to help self-driving cars get quick mass adoption. Their approach centres around building cameras and enhancing the ability to access and process data by the cameras, so that regular everyday drivers and cars can get this new technology. Here is an article to read more on this.

Switzerland has officially begun offering live rides on the SmartShuttle autonomous, electric vehicle from Navya in the city of Sion. The transportation system is led by PostBus Switzerland with a fleet management platform from BestMile. The announcement followed months of testing prior to its launch in mid-June 2016. Here is an article in Driverless Transportation to read more about it.

This National Public Radio article talks about the Local Motors and its self-driving mini bus called Olli. This is an app-solicited shuttle bus that uses the learning and predictive technologies of IBM's Watson. A photo of Olli is on the masthead. The automated driving system for Olli is being provided by Meridian Autonomous Inc. as described in this announcement from Local Motors.

Truck Platooning, an application of the convergence of automated and connected vehicle technology, was demonstrated by TASS International at the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium held in Sweden on June 20-22, 2016. TASS International used its exhibition area with two complete driving simulators to demonstrate various platooning scenarios using the physics-based simulation platform PreScan. Delegates of the event could easily use one of the driving simulators and drive either a Volvo-modeled or DAF-modeled truck as a human driver. Here is the update from TASS International website.

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AV Regulations
On April 13 this year, two City of Calgary Councillors raised a Notice of Motion, that was subsequently approved, to ask the City Administration to conduct a study on future transportation technologies such as Autonomous, Connected and Electric Vehicles. The City of Calgary's General Manager for Transportation, Mac Logan, gave a press interview immediately following the approval of the Motion saying that autonomous vehicles could be on Calgary's streets by 2021 and that the City will be updating its long term transportation plans to take account of autonomous technology. The full report is expected in March, 2017. Here is the CBC News article based on the interview.

On a similar note, City of Vancouver Council also raised a Motion for a study on the impact of autonomous vehicle technology on the city's transportation plans. A memo was presented to the Council in April, saying that autonomous vehicle technology improves safety and enables efficient utilization of the infrastructure. The full report is expected in fall this year. Here is a link to read more.

And automated public transit vehicles are on the Toronto City Council's agenda according to this article form Canadian Underwriter.

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AV Research
The University of Calgary is conducting an online survey for a research project about autonomous vehicles in Alberta to examine the potential demand for autonomous vehicles and gather information on people's perception and attitudes toward it. The study is sponsored by the Alberta Motor Association and Alberta Innovates Technology Futures. If you are interested, here is the link to participate in the survey.

Automotive engineers are well aware of the imminent threat of cybersecurity. To combat the same, a group of 60 engineers including those at car makers and Tier 1s have come together and formed a cybersecurity testing requirements task force, to test the functional and non-functional safety of these cars. Here is the Electronic Engineering Times article to read more about it.

An advanced driving simulator designed for research in connected and autonomous vehicles -- claimed to be the world's most adaptable -- was launched at the University of Warwick, UK on June 30, 2016. This $7 million facility is overseen by Prof. Paul Jennings, head of the experimental engineering at Warwick. Here is the Economist article with more information about the launch.

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Other AV Articles
Viodi has published "The Virtual Transportation Network – Some Snippets from the AVS 16 Symposium" with quotes from Paul Godsmark.

An article in Cult of Mac "Mystery vans likely making 3-D road maps for Apple’s self-driving car" also includes a comment by Paul.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), a non-profit coalition of officials from 40 big North American cities, has published a list of nine principles to guide future research and policy on autonomous vehicles. This Vox Technology article mentions NACTO's inclination towards fully autonomous vehicles, instead of gradually moving from partial to full autonomy (purely because of the risks involved in keeping humans in the loop in the partial autonomy case). The article also talks about the incentives for shared, automated, electric vehicles (SAEVs) and planning future infrastructure around SAEVs.

This Gizmodo article is a great piece on the ethical dilemma surrounding the adoption of self-driving cars. The case of save 10 lives at the expense of 1 life vs save 10 lives at the expense of your life is well demonstrated. We at CAVCOE speak at a large number of conferences (35 so far this year) and this ethical question comes up frequently. One of our answers is to pose another ethical question. If we assume that within a few years, the data is in and computers are shown to be significantly safer drivers than humans ‑ not perfect, just significantly better. Is it ethical to allow humans to continue to cause all those collisions, deaths and injuries? At what point do the regulatory bodies ban human drivers?

This Tech Republic article is a good refresher on different levels of autonomous vehicle technology, from vehicle with no autonomous feature to a vehicle designed to perform all safety critical driving functions in all conditions.

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Upcoming AV Related Events

Sep 19-21, 2016: SAE 2016 Convergence; Novi, Michigan, USA.

Sep 26-30, 2016: Fisita World Automotive Congress; Busan, Korea.

Oct 3-4, 2016: TU-Automotive ADAS & Autonomous USA; Novi, Michigan, USA.

Oct 4-6, 2016: SAE 2016 Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress; Rosemont, Illinois, USA.

Oct 10-14, 2016: ITS World Congress, Melbourne, Australia.

Oct 25-26, 2016: Autonomous Vehicle Safety Regulation World Congress 2016, Novi, Michigan.

Nov 1-3, 2016: UnmannedCanada 2016, the annual conference of Unmanned Systems Canada; Edmonton, Alberta.

Nov 2-3, 2016: TU Automotive Europe 2016, 14th Annual Conference and Exhibition, Munich.

Nov 29-Dec 1, 2016: SAE 2016 From ADAS to Automated Driving; Munich, Germany.

Apr 4-6, 2017: SAE 2017 World Congress and Exhibition; Detroit, Michigan, USA.

Oct 29 - Nov 2, 2017: ITS World Congress, Montreal, Canada.

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