Nevada’s Department of Motor Vehicles has now issued the regulations for operating autonomous cars. In testing mode, they will carry red license plates and they must have at least two occupants. One of them must be able to assume control over the vehicle at all times. Once an autonomous car has been certified for fully autonomous operation, the car will display green license plates (Nevada’s  standard license plates are blue-gray).

Key issues of the regulation:

• Whether physically present or not, the operator of an autonomous car shall be deemed the driver with respect to applicable traffic laws.
• Operators of autonomous cars require a special Nevada driver’s license with a ‘G’ amendment. The amendment can be easily obtained for the holder of a Nevada drivers license and costs $5.
• Autonomous cars may be sold in the state once they have passed testing and certification by the car manufacturer or an autonomous technology certification facility.
• Autonomous technology certification facilities will be private entities and will be licensed by the Department of Motor Vehicle.

The regulation requires the following components within each autonomous car:

• A black box which captures the last 30 seconds and retains its data for 3 years
• A visual indicator when in autonomous mode inside the vehicle
• An easily accessible, non detracting mode switch for engaging or disengaging autonomous mode
• A failure routine which allows the car to transfer control back to the operator when it detects an error or which safely moves the car out of traffic and brings it to a stop should the operator not be able to assume immediate control.
• It does not explicitly mention a mechanism to limit autonomous mode to the geographical area (e.g. Nevada highways) where autonomous mode is legal.

The regulation contains provision for the testing phase

• Minimum 1 Mio U$ deposit or surety bond (maximum 3 Mio U$ for more than 10 vehicles)
• Report any accident the autonomous car is involved with within 10 days to the Department.

This is a landmark regulation, setting up precedent on which other laws will be modeled. The regulation does not really solve the responsibility problem by deeming the operator the driver. It is clearly modeled on the assumption that the autonomous vehicle will be privately owned by Nevada residents, and does not consider the issue of car-sharing and operating autonomous vehicles as taxis (Would the taxi’s passenger be considered the operator and therefore need a Nevada driver’s license with ‘G’ amendment?).

By addressing the case where the operator is not present within the car, the regulation already looks ahead to the time where autonomous cars will not be limited to highways but may roam all public roads!

National Public Radio featured an interview about the state of driverless car technology on January 17. Bryant Walker Smith, a legal scholar at Stanford estimated that driverless car technology could be available on the market within 10 years. He discussed progress on the legalization of driverless cars in Nevada and Florida and stressed the great potential to save lives. A transcript and soundtrack of the interview is available here.

Google is building a patent portfolio in driverless car technology. In December, the US Patent Office awarded Patent 8078349 for transitioning a car from human-driven to autonomous mode. A key problem which this patent solves is to ensure that the car knows its precise location when switching into autonomous mode. GPS may not be precise enough for the vehicle to understand where it is (it may only be accurate by 10 meters) and to determine the direction it should take. Therefore Google proposes using markings called landing strips – which may be embedded in the road. The human driver stops the car on a landing strip which the car then detects and uses to determine its location. Landing strips may even contain an embedded QR-code. But landing strips need not be marked on the ground. They may consist of recognizable well defined locations which a car can detect by examining its surroundings and for which it can look up the data in a database or online. An example could be a conventional, clearly marked parking spot.

The patent also addresses additional issues of providing instructions to the autonomous car when switching to autonomous mode. This could include instructions to move to a different location where the car is needed or to proceed to a service station for maintenance.

Australian designer Charles Rattray has let imagination run wild with his Autonomo 2030 concept car pictured below. He envisions a fully autonomous electric car with a multi-layer nano-scale surface which includes solar cells. Windows can be switched between opaque and fully-transparent modes. Multiple such cars can automatically travel together in distances of 20 cm thus significantly reducing drag and energy consumption. The autonomo is not much longer but significantly narrower than the Mini and can carry up to two adults seated behind each other. Linked in a flock, two Autonomo vehicles should be able to use a single lane on many streets. Combined with inter-vehicle communication and synchronization this should do much to eliminate traffic jams.For more info see the detailed concept.

Autonomo 2030 Concept Car

 Image source, license

Agriculture is full of opportunities for driverless approaches. German farm equipment vendor Fendt (a subsidiary of AGCO) hast developed a technology ‘Guide-Connect’ to let a tractor operate without driver. The tractor is not fully autonomous; instead it follows another human operated tractor and replicates its actions. A GPS sensor allows it to identify the location where the lead tractor initiates operations such as engaging gears, lowering tools etc. The driverless tractor then performs the same action when it arrives at the corresponding location. The movie below (narration in German) shows the tandem in operation.

Guide-Connect won a Gold Medal for innovation at the 2011 Agritechnica industry fair. The technology is not limited to simple follow-me scenarios. It can also handle obstacles and turns.