AAA Study Modern Autopilots Face Serious Challenges with City Driving
A real-world test of modern automated driver assistance systems (ADAS) conducted by the American Automobile Association (AAA) has shown that, in many cases, the abilities of these so-called autopilots are exaggerated. The study, set against the complex hallmarks of city traffic, evidently was too much for these systems, requiring human intervention all too frequently.
AAA Road Test Key Findings
AAA tested five different unnamed ADAS solutions on the streets of Los Angeles. Over 16 hours and 550 km of driving, the results showed consistent failure modes:
- Intervention RateOnce, the average time craved by human beings was 9.1 minutes, or 5.15 km of travel distance.
- Level 2 Vs. Level 3 Systems—The research discovered that, on average, Level 2 autonomy systems required intervention 3 times more often than Level 3 (every 6.7 minutes, compared to 20.1 minutes).
- "Hands-Free" Alerts—This means that even when they are designed to do so, systems keep having the driver to hold the steering wheel at intervals of 15.3 minutes or 8.8 kilometers.
Common Scenarios for These Failures
Almost always, the systems did not perform well in common urban driving scenarios. The tests exhibited similar prominent issues with:
Merging Vehicles: The systems would not react to vehicles moving into their lane, leading to driver intervention in 90% of these conditions.
Lane Keeping: The second highest occurrence was lane keeping, requiring corrections from the driver in 72% of the instances observed (this occurred approximately once every 32.2 minutes).
Other noted instances of failure included:
- Held-Up Departure: 71 times the system failed to commence road departure after a stop.
- False Braking: 43 system instances failed to brake in an accurate manner.
- Random Deactivation: 57 random deactivations of lane-keeping or adaptive cruise control systems.
Conclusion and Recommendation
As a result of the experiment, AAA stated that it will push for the vendors to enhance their ADAS. In particular, the association mentioned the need for improvement in the responses of the systems under consideration during lane changing and reliable lane-keeping characteristics when it comes to driving in urban environments.
