Driverless vehicles might seem like a distant future in India but some level of autonomy will become increasingly common in the passenger vehicle segment and cruise control in the two-wheeler segment.
In an interaction with Financial Express Online, Frank Petznick, Head of the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) business unit at Continental said that India has been a cost-sensitive market and introduction of ADAS features has lagged global trends. He says the demand usually grows by either push from the regulations or customer preferences, which allows OEMs to differentiate and make more money.
“Both of these things existing, the mass adoption phenomena will be through legislation, and we need to find very cost-sensitive solutions. Because every rupee counts, we need to be able to bring something which is proven on the one side, something that can be scaled down for global production. We can make small hardware devices, but also very adaptive system solutions to be done with a minimal setup able to capture the Global NCAP requirements, I think this is the key in India,” he added.
India specific development
In recent times, many automakers in India have started offering ADAS features, but unlike the global parts of the world, a hands-free driving experience is not something that’s easily achievable in India.
When asked about the progress of ADAS technology deployment in India, Petznick says the hardware and also the functionality will be very similar to other markets, but the “implementation of how the functions react to certain situation is based on training on data on application in a specific market. This will be very Indian specific, but it’s the same functionality, you will also have adaptive cruise control, emergency braking, blind spot detection, automatic parking, valet parking, or self-parking while outside, the parking will be even more similar.”
He further added that the driving behaviour of vehicle users is very different in each geography. “You need to have different distances, also brake differently. One might even add a microphone to the system. Because people are using their horns to indicate something as normal behaviour. You need to take this into consideration and identify those signals too. If you just have a camera, and you don’t have noise control, you might lose half of the information on the road. Those kinds of things have to be probably added.”
Indian talent
Just like many other companies, Continental too has recognised the huge talent pool in India, especially on the software side and established a strong base in Bengaluru. For India, the company is now setting up dedicated teams that will focus on developing ADAS solutions specifically for the domestic market. “We have a huge tech centre with thousands of engineers working in Bengaluru and a big portion of that is working on ADAS technologies. It has been a major portion for eight years. For a long time, they have been working on a global perspective on basically almost all the ADAS solutions, we are doing the software is done here. They are working on camera algorithms, compute units, and software functions also globally. We have the expertise here,” shared Petznick.
He added that while it is not difficult to introduce Level 3 Autonomous drive functions globally, automakers are taking it slow to avoid any issues with legal challenges. “I don’t see Level 4 in the cars for the next years to come. I see Level 4 the in the commercial fleets, which is what we are doing in a controlled environment or a specific environment like a highway only. This is where I see truly level four coming in the next 2-3 years globally. Level 3 and Level 2+, for me, it’s just the legal thing, most of the cars today are running under the label of Level 2++, whatever you call that in different countries, they are in reality Level 3 capable. But the OEM decides to put it under a Level 2+, which indicates the driver is always in charge. Though they could use the Level 3 functionality on their own risk as you are taking the responsibility partly of the driver. And this is a legal thing, which also comes with the legislation. If you ask me a Level 3 on the India road, I believe it highly depends on when the legal setup is given.”
Two-wheeler solutions
Two-wheelers is also an area of focus for the German tier 1. Continental is actively developing radar applications for the two-wheeler segment. This technology he explained is “easy to implement and utilises the radar for blind spot detection or 360-degree view or at least looking backwards, depending on the strategy of the two-wheeler manufacturer.”
This will simply mean the integration of radar or cameras to detect objects for the rider. Coming to cruise control he pointed out that the two-wheeler will need to accelerate and deaccelerate automatically. Petznick gave the example of the first adaptive cruise controls that were introduced in four-wheelers, which did not brake till the very end, they just decelerate accelerated. This in the case of two-wheelers would include the usage of emergency brakes, which would cause a very bad surprise for the rider.
“I think there will be a hesitation not by technology, but by the market to really introduce such features in a two-wheeler. But I think in the next couple of years there could be the limited number of customers, maybe more on the premium side,” he concluded.
