The Autonomous 2024 On the Path to Autonomous Driving: No Compromises on Safety

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On September 24, 2024, the industry event "The Autonomous Main Event" marked its fifth anniversary at the historic Vienna Hofburg. Themed "Cutting No Corners: Bridging the Gap in AV Safety," the event highlighted the critical importance of integrating autonomous driving technology with safety as its core focus. The conference underscored that successful implementation in real-world scenarios requires prioritizing safety at every step. A series of workshops were held the day before, covering diverse topics to encourage deeper insights and collaboration on autonomous vehicle (AV) safety.

580 participants attending either in person or virtually, along with more than 250 participating companies, celebrated the fifth anniversary of The Autonomous Main Event, emphasizing the importance of safety on the path to autonomous driving. Under the theme "Cutting No Corners: Bridging the Gap in AV Safety," which translates to "No Compromises on the Path to Safe Autonomous Driving," the industry demonstrated that it takes the public's concerns seriously and aims to gain the trust of potential users of autonomous mobility through safe technology. "For autonomous driving, safety is the main concern of consumers," stated Dr. Dirk Linzmeier, CEO of TTTech Auto, emphasizing, "What we know is that partnerships and ecosystems are crucial for success in safety design. Safety is neither an area for competition nor for compromise—it's about getting it right." But what does the right approach look like? To answer this question, The Autonomous Main Event brought together car manufacturers, suppliers, semiconductor makers, and software companies, including TTTech Auto, NXP Semiconductors, Aurora, Volvo, Continental, Mobileye, Toyota, SDVerse, Volkswagen, Bosch, Elektrobit, Infineon, Qualcomm, Audi, Denso, and Green Hills Software.

Software-defined vehicles

While customer experience in vehicles was primarily defined by hardware in the past, software now plays a much stronger role. End consumers increasingly expect integration of the vehicle into their digital world. Additionally, new features for connectivity, automation, and personalization will increasingly be realized through software in the future. By regularly updating these functions, the vehicle's value can be enhanced throughout its entire lifecycle. Undoubtedly, there are many opportunities. "Software-defined vehicles define a new era in the automotive sector," emphasized Lars Reger, CTO of NXP in his keynote. By 2030, it is expected that 90 percent of vehicles manufactured will be SDVs. However, "Great opportunities typically bring great technological challenges, especially when it comes to implementing the most crucial feature—safety." Reger gave insights into how the right technology can help minimize the complexity of SDVs in terms of safety. Understanding the risks in developing an SDV was also discussed by Stefan Poledna of TTTech Auto, Ethan Sorrelgreen from Woven by Toyota, Max Lemke from the EU Commission, Michael Fait from Thoughtworks, and Prashant Guati from SDVerse. "Software is never done; we need to think like a software company, not like traditional firms from the automotive sector," Michael Fait highlighted one of the issues. The outcome of the panel discussion: Implementing innovative architectures and methodologies helps realize robust and cost-effective software updates while maintaining the highest safety standards. No company can handle this alone. An example of successful collaboration is the working group for Safety and Architecture, which has tackled a methodological approach to safety architecture. In December last year, the working group published a report identifying, describing, and evaluating logical architectures, as well as showing how these architectures can be implemented in hardware and software. Another result: Asymmetrical architectures that allow majority voting are suitable for automated driving. The working group is now developing a second edition, based on five subsequent work packages, including: sufficient independence of sensor systems, security, validation of high-availability infrastructure, observation post-deployment, and additional conceptual system architectures. This second edition is expected to be released at The Autonomous Main Event 2025, scheduled for September 17-18.

Legislation in Focus

Panel discussion number two focused on regulations and legislation for autonomous vehicles. Participants Janett Fahrenholz from Volkswagen, Richard Damm from KBA and UNECE, Stefan Oexl from Torc Robotics, and Fabrizio Ugo Scelsi from Vay emphasized that global harmonization of regulations for autonomous vehicles is urgently needed. Richard Damm from KBA, who is also the chair of the UNECE working group, stated that the UN aims to publish regulations for Level 4 vehicles by mid-2026. Until then, every manufacturer is likely to "cook their own soup" and use the best opportunities available, as Stefan Oexl highlighted: "Our preferred location for tests is where we want to enter the market firstand that has to be a suitable regulatory environment. For us, that’s Texas. There’s little rain, hardly any snow, and the traffic is less complex and more predictable than in other places." It was agreed that the first use case for autonomous driving is more likely to be in the commercial vehicle sector than in passenger cars. This was also illustrated by the fireside chat from Volvo and Aurora, who are also conducting tests in the commercial vehicle environment in Texas, and the presentation by Nikolai Setzer, CEO of Continental, who chose his keynote to highlight the close partnership with Aurora.

Last but not least, the final panel discussion of a busy day highlighted how synergies can be leveraged across industry segments. Looking beyond one's own field is always helpful, for example, to incorporate insights from autonomous agricultural machinery into the automotive sector. (se)

This article was first published on our sister website www.next-mobility.de (german language)

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