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Grayson Brulte:
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Hello, I'm Grayson Brulte. Welcome to another episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, a show about emerging technology and trends and mobility with leaders, innovators, and strategists who make it all happen.
On today's episode, we're absolutely honored to be joined by Kristin Thompson, Product Manager, and Philip Hubertus, Director of Product Management Driver Assistance & Automated Driving Maps, HERE Technologies.
On today's episode, we'll discuss intelligent speed assistance and the impact it will have on the driving experience.
Welcome to the podcast.
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Kristin Thompson:
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Thank you for having us.
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Philip Hubertus:
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Hey, Grayson, great to talk to you today.
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Grayson Brulte:
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It's great to have you here because HERE over the years it's been innovating. You have a constant track record of innovating and building world-renowned maps. You've also taken a very big leadership position on autonomous driving. Kristin, how is HERE approaching autonomous driving?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah, so we have been in this space for mapping as a leading platform for location, intelligence, and technology for. about 30 years. So we started building navigation maps 30 years ago and we started getting into the autonomous space around 10 years ago.
Working in partnership with Mercedes on their first autonomous driving pilot that they did in Germany. And they were one of our first customers to launch a level three program about a year ago. In Germany, they got their certification for a level three system on the highway, and they have leveraged our high-definition maps for that system.
So we've been building our high definition maps specifically for automated driving, and now we have a variety of different customers and platforms leveraging that technology. So we've been working in close partnership.
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Grayson Brulte:
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I was very fortunate years ago to visit Mercedes-Benz R&D, and I saw the original prototype vehicles. I said, oh, this is well done. You kept the S550 interior. It's very beautiful. And he says, Grayson, no, we have a problem. I said, what's that? We opened the trunk. He goes, our customers can't put their golf clubs in here. And so it's come a very long way. But when they have the big stacks in the trunk to, to where they are today and they keep innovating as years keep innovating for Mercedes, innovating for hundreds of years.
You've innovated for 30 years. And Philip, there's a really cool innovation that's come out of HERE is the intelligence speed assistance technology. What role is that playing in your approach to autonomous driving?
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Philip Hubertus:
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I'll be honest and say that intelligence, speed assistance really is a European Union mandate, and it's a very basic assistance system, but what I see is it's a great way to drive consumer adoption for driving assistance and automated driving system.
It's like it plants a seed for such systems to gain consumer trust and confidence in such systems. The goal of ISO is to reduce road deaths to almost zero. That's what the European Union had as its core mission for this. And to achieve this, it provides drivers with support to always know the speed limits on all roads.
And we have speed limits coded to all road segments since many years. And the reason is that speeding is really one of the top reasons for accidents. So ISA is a mandatory feature in all European Union countries for new type vehicles. Since the summer of this year, and it's going to be mandated for all newly registered vehicles starting in the summer of 2024.
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Grayson Brulte:
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How is it building consumer confidence? Is the vehicle not allowed to speed? How is it building that consumer confidence?
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Philip Hubertus:
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So what it does as a minimum implementation, is it displaced the speed limit at all times in the cluster. So in direct line of sight, and then it has to do either an audio or visual warning, or it can also limit, the acceptance of your foot pressure on the accelerator panel, so it doesn't go over the speed limit.
Those two things are optional. What one of them at least is mandatory, but you can choose which one to implement. How does it see confidence? There's a technical system here that provides you with the correct speed limit at all times. So there's a piece of technology that works in your favor. And I think if you start going, taking it a nutshell, if you combine that as a iso, as a passive level zero feature with a more active level one feature, like a cruise control, then you start.
Really seeing how consumers like that, a piece of technology helps them to drive safer and more comfortable. Cause that system would then automatically take over the speed limit on the roads driving accelerate more or slowly to speed limit when control. That's how.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Are maps the backbone where you map the EU with speed limits and if so, are they, are the backbone? How often is that being updated? If there, for instance, there's a road construction area or something on the road. Might have changed in certain parts of United States due to weather, for example.
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah, so we have a variety of different data sources that we use to update the maps. We're constantly updating our map data.
We use camera technology, we use aerial and satellite imagery crowdsource data from our OEM partners that we use, and a variety of other inputs. Probe dynamic data feeds. Et cetera. So we're constantly updating our map data. It's really a question of how often and frequently the end users want to update their systems, get fresh map data into the vehicles, and get that out to their drivers.
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Grayson Brulte:
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What the end user, you're referring to the world's OEMs, let's say the European OEMs, how often they like to update their systems, correct? Yes. And so Philip mentioned that it's mandatory in the EU. Are you seeing the OEMs incorporate it in ways that make it very easy for the driver? Cuz some drivers we've had on they don't like beeps.
Perhaps they like a visual instead of a beep. Are you seeing your OEM customers innovate on the way that they display that data to those drivers?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yes, and I think they're trying to provide options. It depends on the OEM itself and how they're actually implementing this technology. But there are a variety of different ways to actually implement this.
So audio and visual are some ways, but then there's also some haptic feedback and vibrations, things like that. So there, there are different ways to actually get this. Information communicated to the driver.
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Grayson Brulte:
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That's a real big positive because then the driver could essentially pick, okay, I like the sound, I like the hepatic. I like the visual. For instance, I like looking out at the screen in front of me. My wife doesn't like it, but she likes the beep. So you get to pick and choose your preferences. Philip the EU is racing towards autonomy. There are deployments throughout the EU. Could intelligent speed systems become the de facto speed limits for when autonomous vehicles are deployed, moving, paying passengers of the public in the EU?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Yeah, the speed limits are part of our HD live map, but it's not just the legal speed limit that you need. You also need to know what speed is actually a comfortable and safe one to drive, right? Cause you may have a road that has a legal speed limit of a hundred kilometers but you still don't want to drive to full a hundred kilometers per hour in automated driving mode.
Because it may make the passengers feel uncomfortable. So the speed limit is just one indicator. We have other indicators. We have curvature data. We have recommended speed data things that help an automated driving system to. Or help the vehicle to behave in a comfortable and safe manner way.
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Grayson Brulte:
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I like that. The recommended speed data, is that based on the day that, that you're gathering as the vehicles go down the road? Or how are you coming to that the best pr you wanna call it? Best practices?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Yeah. So sometimes there's actually signs that recommend speed limits, so that's one data point. Curvature data can be another. So how sharp a curve is, what's ahead of the curve, what the speed limit is behind the curve. For example, if there's a junction of sorts or something else. But it really depends on how the OEMs want to implement this. So we provide the data and then they use that data to come up with what they feel comfortable.
You can probably relate that someone driving a Porsche may have a very different feel for speed than someone driving a big SUV on a curvy mountain road, right? Yeah, comfortable speed means different things to different people in different cars, so that, that is what the OEMs used to adapt and still have, what BMW calls sheer driving pleasure or what, maybe a Volvo calls, the safest car on the road or something like we give them the freedom to implement how they want that how they want to brand their vehicles to feel like.
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Grayson Brulte:
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I like that HERE Technologies a platform and when you go to say, customer A, they can implement it one way. You go to customer B, they can implement it another way. It creates a really great platform, in my opinion, becomes very sticky as technology moves from. Level 2 to 3, to Level 4. And Kristen in your opinion, what's needed to achieve SAE Level 4? HERE's clearly building a very good data link, but what's really needed to achieve level four, in your opinion?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah. You absolutely hit it. It's data, right? So data over time and accruing more and more data at scale globally in all kinds of different scenarios. I think what we have seen as we work with a lot of OEMs is that they're really focusing on individual use cases.
So how can they enable autonomy for a particular set of conditions? And at scale, because their vehicles are available broadly and at scale. When you look at some of the companies that are focusing on. Level four systems. They're really trying to do all levels of autonomy on a focused scale.
So it's really different approaches. And I think because of the amount of data that is needed to identify different use cases, different edge cases, outliers, certain conditions that's really why you see those two different approaches. But I think in order to get to level four, it's really about the data and the feedback loop to the systems learning and getting that information to the car.
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Grayson Brulte:
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The data that you're gathering from the level two systems today, is that helping your OEM partners and customers perfect their Level 4 systems?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah, absolutely. So we have a marketplace platform. We get data from our customers and use that to make improvements to the map and in turn provide that map data to our customers.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Do you ever see a point where, let's just say you have an individual driving a level two system where they become disenfranchised as they go to level four. It's the same thing. No I want to drive, or no, perhaps the system didn't perform the way it was supposed to perform. Do you see any potential negative feedback there? Do you think that we'll eventually just segue once the regulatory landscape is properly set?
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Philip Hubertus:
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The customers that we work with give their consumers the choice, right when to engage the drive automation systems and when to just drive themselves. And certainly, there is regulatory and also Limitations from the OEMs on where they allow a vehicle to drive itself.
So currently we are still in the conditional automated driving space on public roads by serious production cars and everywhere. I mean, you can buy the latest Mercedes S Class with the pilot. Drive it wherever you want to drive it to. And L-4 system is often a robotaxi that is confined in where you can actually take it.
And, if it rains heavily or even snows, they may just stop the whole service altogether. But with, you ask us, you can still go and drive of course, and you can decide whether, you want to take a phone call and maybe don't concentrate on driving and you're out on a freeway or interstate and you just hand over control of the system and just do your call or talk to passengers or whatever you wanna do and not concentrate on driving.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Philip, you mentioned earlier that the Intelligent Speed Assistance is mandatory in the EU. How did that come about? Was it the regulators saying that we want to create safer roads? Was there feedback from the public? What led to that?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Yeah. The European Union has a general safety regulation and does this general safety regulation's key goal is what's, what they call mission zero, which is really zero road accidents with fatalities in the European Union countries by 2050.
That is and ISA intelligence speed assistance is one of the regulations that is part of this GSR or General Safety Regulation. It's a European Union initiative. It is mandatory. It has become mandatory this year for new vehicle types that are newly launched to market, and it becomes mandatory for all newly registered cars and buses and trucks and delivery vehicles and trucks in summer of 2024. So then if you buy a new car, it'll have an ISA solution.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Can the older vehicles. Can they be retrofitted to meet compliance or how does that work?
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Philip Hubertus:
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It's funny you asked that because ISA isn't really a new thing. I'm driving cars since a couple of years that have an ISA feature. And it wasn't mandatory. So you know, it wasn't an option. So you can order it. You don't have to bring it to all the vehicles. So if you own a vehicle that doesn't have ISA, you are still allowed to drive it perfectly fine.
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Grayson Brulte:
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I live in Florida. You go on the highway and every other billboard is a lawyer accident call, we sue accident call. We sue. It's a big problem to make my insurance rates go up. Are you seeing global insurers? Take advantage of that, where you have driver A, or if you wanna use term customer A, where they're sharing it within the insurance company and saying, Hey, it's true. You don't speed. We have 12 months of data, 18 months of data proving that, okay, maybe you averaged two miles over, hey, but you're not a guy going 80 miles an hour down the road.
Are you seeing any insurance companies say, okay, this is a really good positive thing as we look to improve our underwriting algorithms?
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Philip Hubertus:
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So I've worked with a couple of insurance companies years ago actually on geolocation technology topics, and it was interesting. But at the time there weren't.
They weren't using real lock files data, so it basically was a black box that you put into the vehicle with technology and software owned by the insurance company, and it was connected to the car. And that way they were pulling their own locks and providing access to their own data.
So this was never data that reached us adhere internally. What we do is we can help with geocoding hotspots of accidents things like that, from accident reports. But again that's really a different, a whole different work stream other than driver assistance and all of that data that we're using for that.
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Grayson Brulte:
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It's interesting though, what you said for access from a risk standpoint, if you could take data and say, okay, historically between four o'clock and 5:30 PM this one section of highway has more crashes than everything else. That becomes really interesting there.
That could help lower rates. It can also help adjust the speed. If you go say, okay, this area we need to figure out a way to reduce speed because just historically there's all these crashes. ISA will. Potentially lower crashes. Lower speeding in the EU. Kristen, did we get to a point where it becomes standard in the US or other countries around the globe?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah, actually I think what we're seeing right now is the EU is the first to implement it in a similar way where they're doing, with a lot of the data privacy laws. And what we're seeing right now is, as I had mentioned before, These different use cases, right? Individual use cases that OEMs are working on for autonomy.
They're really trying to push the limits of what we're allowed to do with autonomous driving in the marketplace right now. I think over time, as you start to see data coming out from things like ISA and other assisted driving reporting coming out on how safe and how beneficial it is. I think actually we'll start to get more regulations set and enforce it, right?
So over right now we're pushing on regulations, but I think over time there will be a poll of regulations actually enforcing that more autonomy is available in vehicles and these systems are available to users. So things start to get safer over time.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Where markets--- Japan's the government's been very vocal about the adoption of autonomous vehicles because they have the age in place policy of their, they're very aging population, live in rural areas, and they have to get to medical care.
And so they've been pushing that and Mitsui, the Japanese trading house last week announced that they're gonna start doing a autonomous truck to help shore up the Japanese supply chain. Do you see this maybe Japan taking a leadership position just based on what the factors that I described on this?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah I mean I could see Japan getting into the space. I think interestingly enough it's an area that we are looking to expand as well. And I think there are other markets in the, in Asia that we are looking to expand where this could potentially be beneficial. I think probably the US would be a likely next step for this to go as well.
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Philip Hubertus:
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And we work with local partners in these Asian countries, right? So we have partnerships there. And there's one advantage often these are islands, so you know, there's no way you can drive from Japan into another country. It's different here in Europe where the different countries all have very different rules.
Speed limits, markings on the roads, signs can look very different. So there's a lot of diversity here that you don't have. That's an advantage of a country like Japan or take South Korea or even take China.
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Grayson Brulte:
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That's interesting. Let's say you're in France and you're going into Switzerland. For example, what happens when you go over that border?
Is it a seamless, obviously you have to go through customs and you're clear. What is it like from a driving perspective?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Yeah. So let me adapt your or change your example because Switzerland is not a European Union country. There is actually a border and there's actually passport controls, but in most of the other European countries, there isn't.
So when you're part of the European Union, which Switzerland isn't, Then you just drive and there may be a sign that says you're not entering France or Austria or Italy, and that's it. There is no border control point. There is no big sign often in on the smaller roads, but the rules change and that is why you need a map later for ISA and for many other things because the rules change. And so the vehicle needs to know where it's at and what the rules are, and that's what we provide down on a road segment level.
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Grayson Brulte:
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From a driver's perspective, do you notice any change when you go over the Italy, France border? Can you go faster on one side and allows you to go faster, or do you notice any differences from a driving perspective?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. I'm, I live in Germany on the Autobahn in Germany, there's many sections where there is no speed limit. So the limiting factor is how fast your car can go. If you are into fast driving but as soon as I drive into France, then the speed limit on the auto route, on the motorways in France is 130.
And if it rains, it's 110. So these are things that you need to know and that you have map data that needs to know to inform you or even to adapt any sort of automated driving system. Whereas A more simple cruise control system, an adaptive cruise control system, or whether it is something on L2 plus oh three. And yes the how drivers drive is also changing. In the Netherlands, for example, my personal observation is that people drive much closer to each other and change lanes in a very different way than they would do in Germany. Which also has to do with the speed limits in the Netherlands has behavior information that you should also be aware of and use as a data point in your automated driving tech.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Ok, this is really interesting. Let's say. I touched down in, in Paris and I rent a car, I drive to the south of France, and I want to go over to Northern Italy. What is that like from a driving experience and say it starts raining, does the car and I'm on adaptive cruise control? Does the car automatically adjust speed or how does that work for an individual that doesn't live in the EU, that's going in the EU and is driving from one country to another?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Yeah, so I think the first point is the information that you are provided with the information about the correct speed limit. And if it is an automated system, then it should inform you that conditions are changing and therefore, It should lower the speed. Depending on what L2 system, you may need to press a button to say, yeah, I understand. I want to go slower. Or you may be able to override it if you're still in control.
Or set the speed higher manually. Is allowed. So those are all possibilities for an L3 system that should really adhere to the roles. When you drive from France into Italy, it has to know what the rules are and then apply them accordingly in the soccer and in the driving behavior.
Otherwise it will not be allowed. Actually, I don't think that you will get a certificate if you, if your software stack doesn't adhere to the rules. And on L3, the OEM is liable for how the vehicle drives. So of course they're the first ones who want to make sure that the view doesn't break any rules.
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Grayson Brulte:
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I like it cuz then it's gonna be a lot easier to get an automatic car instead of a manual. So there, there's bene, there's benefits to the tourism economy there. It's been very clear throughout this conversation that maps play a vital, critical role. In the future of driving both a s driving and as we get to level four driving.
Kristen, in your opinion, what is the future of maps as it relates to autonomous driving? Do they update in real time? What we all know they're gonna play a role there, but what is the future that they're gonna play with autonomous driving?
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah. As, as far as whether or not they're updating in real time, we do have different data streams. So we do have dynamic data that does update in real time. As far as the map data itself updating in real time, we're continuously getting updates. But really, again, it's on the OEM and how quickly and rapidly they want to update the map data in their system. It's a lot of data so some of them do not want to update it continuously, but really as far as the role that maps.
Are going to play. We help with localization. So we assist the vehicles in knowing where exactly where they are in the world. For example, there's, there are things like sensor appropriation for the cameras, so that way the sensors know where to focus on a speed limit sign or a traffic signal.
And then we also extend the sensor horizon beyond what they can. Currently capture with their perception system. For an automated driving system, you're usually looking at around 500 meters for a comfortable takeover from the vehicle driving itself back to the driver. And that's beyond the limit of what most sensors can perceive.
Right now. So we help perception and localization in that kind of way. We help with driving behavior, so knowing where there are stopping locations, knowing where there's a toll station and curves in the road the slope of the road. So we assist on things like that and then we also help with identifying other actors on the road.
So where are there crosswalks, where there could be pedestrians? Where are there bike lanes and then also establishing the O D for these different conditions. So the driving domain for the system. So knowing what conditions are available what features are present, what are not present, and helping to establish.
Where it's safe for certain conditions of autonomy to operate. And then also, as Phillip had mentioned earlier, areas where they don't want to operate, right? So some of these dark spots or areas that are prone to accidents and issues. So I think Maps will pay a critical role in helping provide additional data to the system.
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Grayson Brulte:
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For those things, you're allowing the vehicles to operate safely. You don't have to worry about it. The vehicle trying to go off an off ramp, if it's on a highway you're clearly operating the new lane. 1, 2, 3. Okay. There's how you go. You're not your destination. We're not going off the off ramp yet. So you're increasing safety.
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Kristin Thompson:
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We're certainly trying to help there. Yes.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Philip, what are your thoughts in the future of maps as it relates to autonomous driving?
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Philip Hubertus:
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Yeah I'm excited because I think this will trickle down from the from the current S classes and seven series of this world into cars that are more affordable for everyone.
I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to driver assistance systems that keep people safe. I know that we have a lot of data that is not sensor observable, that really helps with that. Cause there's some companies who believe that they can do everything. With a camera. We believe there's a lot of, we know that a lot of data that is not sensor observable.
That's what we provide as a basis. And yeah, with isa, which goes into every vehicle soon in the European Union I think we're starting a bottom to top approach as well. So maybe from Isa, from the bottom, and from L 3 to the top, we're reaching more consumers with driver assistance system and automatic driving capabilities that will yeah, make driving safe and a pleasure and you can focus on a few other things.
Maybe just look at the beauty of the landscape outside or have a good chat or do a nice call with a friend or with your company colleagues, whatever is on your mind.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Safety's paramount because safety builds trust. And without trust, Level 2 systems will fail. Level 3 systems will fail. Level 4 systems will fail. Safety and trust go hand to hand, and that's exactly what here is doing. Using technology to increase safety, which is gonna enhance your customers, the OEMs, and allow them to build trust with their customers. Philip, Kristin, I really appreciate all the. Incredible information you shared on ISA today.
And as we look to wrap up this insightful conversation, what would you like our lister take away with them? Kristen, we'll start with you, please.
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Kristin Thompson:
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Yeah, I think the most important thing is that we're just scratching the surface here, right? We're really working to. To help with all systems and all different levels of autonomy, and I think that over time we are just gonna see more and more applications and use cases of this technology appearing and available to consumers.
So hopefully over time people will get, develop more trust in these systems get more comfortable with them, and it will just become the norm here is here for all levels of autonomy.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Phillip, your thoughts please?
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Philip Hubertus:
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As you stated. I like that it keeps people comfortable and safer and that it takes some of the stress out of the driving particular in daily commutes, for example, when you really need to pay a lot of attention.
Our technology, you can make that a lot easier. And I like to, I like what we're discussing with our customers today. On future features. So I'm really looking forward to the next few years and how it all develops and how it becomes available in more and more cars for everyone.
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Grayson Brulte:
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As Kristin and Phillip said on this podcast today, HERE is developing the platform for autonomy. Because today is tomorrow. Tomorrow is today, and the future is HERE Technologies. Philip, Kristen, thank you so much for coming on SAE Tomorrow Today.
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Philip Hubertus:
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Thank you for having us.
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Kristin Thompson:
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Thanks, Grayson.
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Grayson Brulte:
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Thank you for listening to SAE Tomorrow Today. If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, please kindly rate review and let us know what topics you'd like for us to explore next.
Be sure to join us next week as we speak with Mark P. Mills, author and entrepreneur, who offers unique perspective on the energy transition in the mobility industry.
SAE International makes no representations as to the accuracy of the information presented in this podcast. The information and opinions are for general information only. SAE International does not endorse, approve, recommend, or certify any information, product, process, service, or organization presented or mentioned in this podcast.
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