The self-driving future is near

Detroit — The autonomous driving future is already here.

At least partially.

Elements of assisted driving already are on the road, and that doesn't just refer to a few thousand Tesla sedans. Think more about adaptive cruise controls or lane departure warning systems in higher end vehicles, rather than a complete Jetsons' style flying car for current examples. And the presence of those products and new ones on the horizon are presenting new opportunities for plastics suppliers to the auto industry.

“It is everywhere,” said Han Hendricks, chief technical officer for Yanfeng Automotive Interiors, which is working closely with automakers to envision how a future autonomous vehicle cabin may look. “We have a pretty good indication of the implementation and cadence of the different driver assistance technologies.

“It will not be an overnight change, obviously, but the increased amount of drive-assist technologies will make its way into the interior.”

When? As soon as 2021, just a few vehicle model years removed from the new 2018 models introduced at the North American International Auto Show at Detroit's Cobo Center, just one flight down from Yanfeng's own booth at the show.

Some regions will adopt autonomous vehicles more quickly. China's government, for instance, has been outspoken in its interest in bringing self-driving cars, electric vehicles and shared vehicles to market faster. Yanfeng, with a global headquarters in Shanghai, has an inside track to be part of that growth.

That shift to autonomous vehicles will come through a series of steps, from Level 1, which includes adaptive cruise control, parking assistance and lane avoidance detection, to Level 5, which requires no human input other than starting the system and setting the destination.

Most automakers will have a Level 3 car on the market by 2021, Hendricks says, which means that the car can operate without a driver's input in certain areas, but a human still must be ready to grab the steering wheel at any time.

If those definitions seem confusing, you're not alone.

“I really struggle with the definition of autonomous drive,” said Doug Patton, executive vice president and chief technology officer for Denso North America, the Southfield, Mich.-based U.S. arm of Japanese auto supplier Denso Corp. “It's going to be an evolutionary process. There's going to be a step function to get there.

“My definition of autonomous drive is that I get to sleep in the back seat, just like the Jetsons, and that's a long way away,” he said.

Both Denso and Yanfeng, along with other suppliers ranging from Adient Ltd. — a U.S.-based seating supplier and partner in Yanfeng whose thin profile seats are used in Chrysler's latest autonomous vehicle concept — to ZF Friedrichshafen AG — a maker of radar sensors used to scan for obstacles and electronic control units which can then apply brakes to avoid collisions — provide examples of the range of new businesses cropping up from autonomous vehicles and how they all depend on each other.

“Our aim is to enable vehicles to see, think and act, and be the one-stop shop for these systems,” said ZF CEO Stefan Sommer.

All those sensors and cameras are packaged in plastics, since metal interferes with their function.

Sometimes that packaging is visible, such as a plastic box located between the rear view mirror and windshield, which house forward-viewing systems to scan the road ahead.

Other times, they're hidden.

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.'s new Rogue Sport, introduced at the Detroit show, places its radar behind an acrylic decorative shield placed at the front grille, disguised with a Nissan badge and styling cues to mimic the grille.

“The front is where the challenge is because that front facing camera for forward emergency braking and ground view monitor, it does have to have clear plastic — non-painted plastic — in order to be able to work,” said Robin Moreo, senior manager in product planning for Nissan. “Some styling integration is required.”

“For the Rogue Sport, we've opted to make it a shield.”

The inside story

For Yanfeng and other interior suppliers, the question becomes trying to determine how the future autonomous vehicle will look for passengers. Each level of autonomous driving will have its own demands, and there are some logistics at play, Hendricks noted.

For its XiM17 concept interior, which debuted at the Detroit show, Yanfeng pictured a vehicle that has a driver at the controls for part of a journey, but then goes to self driving.

“Depending on what the people in the vehicle are doing, or want to do, or where they're going, the vehicle has to enable that level of flexibility,” Hendricks said. “It has to adapt.”

So the XiM has a “lounge” mode for passengers who want to relax during a trip, and a “meeting” mode for business people. Seats can move backward and forward along the floor and can rotate to face each other. Lighting adapts to different moods.

“Then you're talking about moving of floor consoles and of storage and all kinds of hinge mechanisms,” he said. “The topics of ergonomics comes up, the topic of controls. Because up to now, all the controls were in the instrument panel so the driver can reach them, but now the driver, when he's not driving, can move his seat to the back so he can enjoy the space of the interior, but he cannot reach the instrument panel anymore. So the controls have to travel with the driver.”

At the same time, interior suppliers must find ways to create “smart” surfaces that look good but double up as displays and controls when needed.

“What's a dumb surface today will be an intelligent surface, and a functional surface in some way or shape through the integration of [human machine interface] controls — invisible when you don't need it, and looks like a piece of wood, but when you approach it with your hand the controls become visible,” Hendricks said.

Yanfeng is looking at how plastic surfaces in the interior can mimic glass — more popular today because of the ubiquity of touchscreens — and potentially integrate self-healing and self-cleaning surfaces using nanotechnology, which will be in demand for shared ride services.

“There is all this transformation that has already started, and we believe that in the next 10 years, the interior will change more than it's done in the past 100 years because of social trends and technology trends,” Hendricks said.

Denso's Patton says that aesthetics obviously play a part for the automakers though, “that's not what I do.”

Instead, companies like Denso and ZF are part of what they see as an essential safety improvement for drivers. Bring more sensors on board, like radars and vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and cars can communicate with each other and take note of their surroundings even if drivers are distracted — or can't even see trouble ahead.

“With something like [vehicle-to-vehicle communication], you've got non-line-of-sight information. If there's a crash around the next curve, you don't get a 100-car pileup,” Patton said. “You still will get two- or three- or four-car pileup, but there are 95 cars that didn't pile up because that advance warning is out there. Those are the kind of things, the evolution in autonomous driving, that help us today in those areas.”

ZF's Mobileye system works even during periods of poor visibility, such as severe rainstorms, when even the best drivers can't see much. Potentially, future advanced communication sensors could communicate with smart watches or mobile phones of pedestrians and cyclists, so they are all aware of each other before an accident can happen.

Of course, no technology can cover everything.

“Here's my analogy for V-to-V problems,” Patton said. “If you're in northern Michigan and you're driving, I don't think you're going to find very many deer who have a V-to-V collar around their neck to tell you that they're coming. In that case, V-to-V isn't going to help you.

“In the other case, in the city and in city canyons and at intersections, V-to-V is going to be a big help. Is it mandatory? Probably not. But is it an enhancement? Definitely.”