Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and thank you Bob Carter for that perfect lead-in to our rather vivid opening segment. The three-car crash you just saw actually happened just as you saw it.
We know this because we were there. Using an array of sensors and cameras, our engineers at Toyota Research Institute captured a robust and diverse set of data to recreate what happened that day last summer.
Our Lexus test vehicle was travelling in the left-most lane, in manual mode with its autonomy disabled, but its perception capabilities fully active. It was mapping and gathering data at the many tunnels and bridges, in the Bay Area.
Luckily, despite the severity of the crash, no one was injured. We show you this now, not to wow you with technology, but because I want to take you through a question that we posed to ourselves that very day.
Here’s the question: Could a future Toyota Guardian have prevented or mitigated this crash? We believe the answer is yes.
So, what is Toyota Guardian all about? The essence of Toyota Guardian is about amplifying, rather than replacing human ability, like giving dad his keys back for a bit more time behind the wheel, or even more importantly, saving teenage lives where car crashes account for 30 percent of fatalities.
It’s about correcting for human mistakes and human weaknesses and assisting the most vulnerable people at both ends of the age spectrum where far too many lives are lost. Now, from its beginning, TRI has been committed to a two-track approach to automated driving simultaneously developing Toyota Guardian, while working on Level-4 and level 5 self-driving systems that we call Toyota Chauffeur.
Chauffeur is the kind of self-driving technology that we hear most about in the press, specifically, an approach that replaces the human driver with a machine.
Level-5 Chauffeur is defined as a system capable of driving anywhere, anytime, in any conditions, with no driver input. This is a wonderful goal, and someday we may achieve it. But it’s essential to not underestimate how hard a task Chauffeur systems are, both technologically and sociologically.
For example, how do we train a machine about the social ballet required to navigate through an ever-changing environment as well as, or better than, a human driver?
How do we teach these systems to predict what a policeman means when he motions for you to stop at an intersection even though the light is green or when a pedestrian will try to cross the road?
Let’s also keep in mind that it may take considerable time for society to accept the inevitable crashes, injuries, and fatalities that are still going to occur with Chauffeur systems.
Now, none of us in the automobile or IT industries are close to fully answering these questions.
In the meantime, we have a moral obligation to apply automated vehicle technology to save as many lives possible as soon as possible.
This is why TRI’s primary focus over the last year has been to concentrate most of our effort on Toyota Guardian, employing our unique dual cockpit control system.
Please click here to view the full press release.
SOURCE: Toyota