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Key Takeaways
- The SAE defines six levels of driving automation, from Level 0 (fully manual) to Level 5 (fully autonomous).
- Levels 0-2 keep the human in control (assistance only); from Level 3 the vehicle monitors the driving environment.
- Level 4 is geofenced to defined conditions; Level 5 can drive anywhere with no human attention and no steering wheel or pedals.
- Most automated vehicles on the road today are operating between Levels 2 and 3; the jump to Level 5 is hard because the car must see, perceive, and act safely with no human safety net.
- Reaching Level 5 hinges on better sensors, perceptive AI, and validated decision making — increasingly proven through simulation.
By 2030, Goldman Sachs estimates up to 10% of global new car sales could be Level 3 vehicles. Before merging onto roadways, self-driving cars will first have to progress through 6 levels of driver assistance technology advancements.
What exactly are these levels? And where are we now?
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) defines 6 levels of driving automation ranging from 0 (fully manual) to 5 (fully autonomous). These levels have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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Level 0 (No Driving Automation)
Most vehicles on the road today are Level 0, or manually controlled. The human provides the "dynamic driving task," although there may be systems in place to help the driver. An example would be the emergency braking system. Since it technically doesn’t "drive" the vehicle, it does not qualify as automation.
Level 1 (Driver Assistance)
This is the lowest level of automation. The vehicle features a single automated system for driver assistance, such as steering or accelerating (cruise control). Adaptive cruise control, where the vehicle can be kept at a safe distance behind the next car, qualifies as Level 1 because the human driver monitors the other aspects of driving such as steering and braking.
Level 2 (Partial Driving Automation)
This means advanced driver assistance systems or ADAS. The vehicle can control both steering and accelerating/decelerating. Here the automation falls short of self-driving because a human sits in the driver’s seat and can take control of the car at any time. Tesla Autopilot and Cadillac (General Motors) Super Cruise systems both qualify as Level 2.
Building blocks of a fully autonomous vehicle.
Level 3 (Conditional Driving Automation)
The jump from Level 2 to Level 3 is substantial from a technological perspective, but subtle if not negligible from a human perspective.
Level 3 vehicles have “environmental detection” capabilities and can make informed decisions for themselves, such as accelerating past a slow-moving vehicle. However, they still require human override. The driver must remain alert and ready to take control if the system is unable to execute the task.
Almost two years ago, Audi (Volkswagen) announced that the next generation of the A8 ― their flagship sedan ― would be the world’s first production Level 3 vehicle. And they delivered. The 2019 Audi A8L arrives in commercial dealerships this Fall. It features Traffic Jam Pilot, which combines a lidar scanner with advanced sensor fusion and processing power (plus built-in redundancies should a component fail).
However, while Audi was developing their marvel of engineering, the regulatory process in the U.S. shifted from federal guidance to state-by-state mandates for autonomous vehicles. So for the time being, the A8L is still classified as a Level 2 vehicle in the United States and will ship without key hardware and software required to achieve Level 3 functionality. In Europe, however, Audi will roll out the full Level 3 A8L with Traffic Jam Pilot (in Germany first).
Level 4 (High Driving Automation)
The key difference between Level 3 and Level 4 automation is that Level 4 vehicles can intervene if things go wrong or there is a system failure. In this sense, these cars do not require human interaction in most circumstances. However, a human still has the option to manually override.
Level 4 vehicles can operate in self-driving mode. But until legislation and infrastructure evolves, they can only do so within a limited area (usually an urban environment where top speeds reach an average of 30mph). This is known as geofencing. As such, most Level 4 vehicles in existence are geared toward ridesharing. For example:
- NAVYA, a French company, is already building and selling Level 4 shuttles and cabs in the U.S. that run fully on electric power and can reach a top speed of 55 mph.
- Alphabet's Waymo unveiled a Level 4 self-driving taxi service in Arizona, where they had been testing driverless cars―without a safety driver in the seat―for more than a year and over 10 million miles.
- Canadian automotive supplier Magna has developed technology (MAX4) to enable Level 4 capabilities in both urban and highway environments. They are working with Lyft to supply high-tech kits that turn vehicles into self-driving cars.
- Volvo and Baidu announced a strategic partnership to jointly develop Level 4 electric vehicles that will serve the robotaxi market in China.
Level 5 (Full Driving Automation)
Level 5 vehicles do not require human attention―the “dynamic driving task” is eliminated. Level 5 cars won’t even have steering wheels or acceleration/braking pedals. They will be free from geofencing, able to go anywhere and do anything that an experienced human driver can do. Fully autonomous cars are undergoing testing in several pockets of the world, but none are yet available to the general public.
Challenges of Reaching Level 5
To operate without a driver, a Level 5 autonomous car must see its surroundings, perceive obstacles and finally act safely based on its perceptions. Seeing, perceiving and acting — on par with humans or better — are three big obstacles to the implementation of Level 5 autonomous vehicles.
“Yes, but it will take time,” says Rajeev Rajan, Vice President, Product Marketing at Synopsys. “Getting from Level 3 to Level 5 is an enormous jump because there is no driver to act as a safety net. The car is literally on its own and must be able to react to all situations that might arise.”
Current State of Autonomous Driving
So, what options do you have to ride in a self-driving car given the current autonomous driving market?
For now, the closest to Level 5 autonomous vehicles in North America is Waymo’s robo-taxi service, which can claim Level 4. A Level 4 vehicle only requires human control when the vehicle indicates that it needs a driver to intervene. Unfortunately, Waymo’s system is still experiencing delays.
Considering the difficulties companies are having bringing a Level 3 autonomous car to market, how do we get to Level 5 autonomous cars?
Level 5 Autonomous Vehicles Need Better Sensors
For Level 5 autonomous cars to work we need to understand that no sensor is perfect. These cars will require a variety of sensors to properly see the world around them. For instance, radar can’t make out complex shapes, but it’s great at looking through fog and rain. Lidar is better at capturing an object’s shape, but it is short-ranged and affected by weather.
Level 5 autonomous cars will be able to sense their environment using multiple sensors.
Autonomous vehicles use multiple sensors to act as backups to each other. “The information provided by the sensors overlaps and that’s good. They correlate information and make the car safer,” says Rajan.
It’s when sensors don’t agree, or when the environment makes them ineffective, that humans must grab the wheel again.
Ansys plays a big role in simulating the physics associated with sensors. Engineers need this data to optimize sensor designs. For instance, Ansys solvers can simulate how fog affects lidar so engineers can design more effective lidar sensors.
To learn how Ansys is helping engineers get sensors ready for Level 5 autonomy, watch Weather Simulation for Virtual Sensor Testing.
Level Five Autonomous Vehicles Need Perceptive Artificial Intelligence
Level 5 autonomous vehicles need to perceive their surroundings.
“You can’t simply put sensors on a car and expect it to recognize its surroundings,” notes Rajan.
The sensors create a large influx of data; Level 5 autonomous cars need to understand and perceive this data as objects in the environment. This needs to be done in real time — even a second of latency can create an unsafe situation.
The only feasible way to process the volume of raw data from sensors is with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).
The AI system will need to be trained to recognize objects on a road. Training an AI to recognize stationary objects that look similar, like stop signs, is relatively straight forward. Training an AI to recognize a person running across a highway is a little more complicated.
Additionally, setting up this scenario on the road is expensive and a safety concern. The AI system still needs to see this scenario numerous times to learn how to perceive it. Therefore, training the AI for this scenario in the real world isn’t feasible.
This is where Ansys simulation comes into play. It helps engineers set up AI training scenarios in a fast, safe and cost-effective environment.
Level 5 Autonomous Vehicles Need Safe Decision Making
Once the autonomous vehicle perceives its surroundings, it then needs to make decisions. Every possible decision needs to be validated to ensure safety. The challenge is that the surroundings that influence the autonomous vehicle’s decisions are governed by thousands of parameters, such as:
- Traffic conditions
- Pedestrian conditions
- Weather conditions
When vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication is established, a car will also need to consider information being communicated by other autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure in the area.
Ensuring the decisions made by the self-driving car are safe is the hardest part of reaching Level 5 autonomy. To ensure safety, it is essential to test, redesign and validate decision making software algorithms over billions of driving scenarios — even the unlikely ones.
It’s impossible to safely test all these scenarios in the real world within a reasonable time. The only way to ensure every condition is tested is to set them up in a virtual world. Ansys has the capabilities to set up and test these scenarios with the vehicle’s hardware in the loop.
Where’s My Autonomous Car?
While the future of autonomous vehicles is promising and exciting, mainstream production in the U.S. is still a few years away from anything higher than Level 2. Not because of technological capability, but because of security—or the lack thereof.
Earlier this year, the Ponemon Institute published a report (commissioned by Synopsys) titled “Securing the Connected Car: A Study of Automotive Industry Cybersecurity Practices.” The report found that “connected” vehicles (like autonomous cars) are rich in physical safety features—seatbelts, airbags, antilock brakes—but not so rich in digital security features. When it comes to what’s needed for safe operation in an online world, connected cars are not yet ready for prime time.
The report is based on a survey of 593 security practitioners, product development professionals, and engineers. More than two-thirds of the respondents acknowledged that the need for better cybersecurity is “urgent” for obvious reasons: 62% said they think a malicious or proof-of-concept attack against automotive software/components is very likely in the next 12 months.
It’s fair to say that consumers won’t accept autonomous cars unless they are confident that they will be at least as safe as they would be on a commercial jet, train, or bus. That day is coming. But the automotive industry must get over a few speedbumps first.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the 6 levels of vehicle autonomy?
SAE Levels 0-5: 0 no automation, 1 driver assistance, 2 partial automation, 3 conditional, 4 high (geofenced), 5 full (anywhere, no human needed).
- What level of self-driving are we at now?
Most production vehicles are Level 2; some Level 3 features exist (region-dependent), and Level 4 runs in geofenced robotaxi services.
- What is the difference between Level 4 and Level 5?
Level 4 is fully autonomous but only within a geofenced area/conditions; Level 5 can drive anywhere with no human attention.
- Why aren't fully autonomous (Level 5) cars available yet?
The hard problems are sensing, real-time perception/AI, and validating safe decisions across billions of scenarios — plus cybersecurity and regulation.
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