Driverless Vehicles Make Inroads in Military - Velodyne Lidar

Editorial
Vice President of Communications
and Publications, Editor
Brett Davis
davis@auvsi.org
Managing Editor
Danielle Lucey
lucey@auvsi.org
Contributing Writers
Paul Godsmark
Gabriel Sniman
David A. McNamara
Mohammad Poorsartep
Advertising
Senior Advertising
and Marketing Manager
Lisa Fick
fick@auvsi.org
+1 571 255 7779
A publication of
President and CEO
Michael Toscano
Executive Vice President
Gretchen West
AUVSI Headquarters
2700 South Quincy Street, Suite 400
Arlington, VA 22206 USA
+1 703 845 9671
info@auvsi.org
www.auvsi.org
Driverless Cars
Gaining Traction
Self-driving cars is a special topic
for Mission Critical magazine.
Now in its third year of covering
commercial robotics topics, Mission
Critical’s very first issue tackled the
emerging field of driverless vehicles.
Now, more than two years after that,
the industry has seen a slew of commercial
automobile manufacturers pledge
driverless cars in the next 10 years.
This magazine takes a look at where
we are now with driverless vehicles.
Editor Brett Davis dives into the military
world, where the technology got
its start on unmanned ground vehicles.
Many of these technologies have come
a long way since their infancy. To read
more on that, see Page 8.
On the opposite end of the spectrum,
Paul Godsmark and Gabriel Sniman
from DriverlessCarHQ.com surveyed
the commercial landscape of self-driving
vehicles. Automotive companies
are revving their engines, gearing up
to be the first with an autonomous
vehicle on the road. See that story on
Page 18.
In preparation for AUVSI’s Detroitbased
Driverless Car Summit in June,
this issue discusses two Michigan-centric
projects aimed at furthering selfdriving
cars.
The first is Michigan’s Connected Vehicle
Test Bed, where companies like
SAIC are performing a large-scale field
test of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicleto-infrastructure
technology so they
may one day be nationally adopted.
The second is the newly formed Fleet
Automation Forum. This group, originally
conceptualized within the U.S.
Army, is assessing how driverless vehicles
will affect commercial trucking.
AUVSI and the University of Michigan
are supporting this effort that aims
to accelerate technology commercialization.
Editor's Message
Danielle Lucey
Just how will legislators, regulators and
private insurers keep up with this increased
energy in the self-driving car
market Mission Critical addresses those
issues throughout its departments.
Uncanny Valley, on Page 12, reviews
the many laws and legislative approaches
states are taking to ensure
they have a future closely tied to driverless
technology.
On Page 13, we take a look at Southwest
Research Institute, a company that
is focusing on low-cost technology to
enable consumers to one day purchase
driverless vehicles. The company is taking
lessons it learned from a Navy program
with a similar focus and translating
that to the commercial market.
Our Q&A on Page 14 is with Tom
Bamonte, general counsel for the
North Texas Tollway Authority. He
has a unique legal perspective on how
cities can prepare for self-driving cars,
including simple changes to basic infrastructure
and how to properly manage
data from these vehicles.
Guy Fraker, a technology consultant
and former insurance agent, discusses
the difficulties of insuring driverless
cars. How will an industry used to having
lots of crash data set prices for cars
intent on not crashing He explains
challenges like this one on Page 27.
I hope you enjoy reading all the new
information in this issue. Perhaps the
next time we visit the topic of driverless
cars, there will be a few being
tested on a roadway near you.
MISSION CRITICAL • May 2013 3