Autonomous Vehicle Development — A QA Perspective
By: Millennial Talks
Tags: Software Testing, Autonomous Cars Market, Autonomous Vehicles, Self Driving Vehicles, Quality Assurance

“1872 — George Brayton invents the first commercial liquid-fuelled internal combustion engine”

“1876 — Nikolaus Otto, along with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, patents the compressed charge, four-cycle engine”

“1879 — Karl Benz patents a reliable two-stroke gas engine”

Brayton, Otto and Benz would be surprised looking at today’s regular passenger vehicles. A feature as simple as the ability to see in the dark was a milestone to be dreamed about back in their times. Created just to aid our travel woes, cars have become an integral part of our lives now with the ability to drive themselves or even deliver pizza, thanks to the latest Ford and Domino’s venture.

The increased power of computers over the past decades has led to immense advancements in terms of safety, efficiency and ease of use of most of the human indulged luxuries. Automotive technology, too, has progressed at an incredible rate. With the introduction of autonomous vehicles in all of our lives, the very aspect of travelling will be transformed into a much more advanced version of what we have now. We are likely to see changes within the next few years that are as dramatic as the difference between a Model T and a modern Porsche 911.

The self driving cars on entering the present society will remove the need for constant human interaction, monitoring and control. Now, if you live in Stuttgart and plan a road-trip to Paris with your friends, you’ll need to drive a minimum of 6 hours and what’s worse is that the route is plagued with traffic issues and presents little interest. A journey like this in a driverless car would allow all the friends the time to enjoy each other’s company rather than needing to concentrate on driving. There would be time to watch films, play games, interact or even sleep, letting the vehicle and its on-board systems take the strain.

True, a few of us enjoy driving but we have to accept the fact that the roads will become much safer. Over ninety percent accidents caused are recorded to be due to human error. Introduce a qualified and certified autonomous driving system and remove the human factor from the equation, you’ve got yourself an infallible digital system to control the vehicle within defined parameters. In the near future, these vehicles will be further enhanced by city networks and sensors, not only will accidents be a rarity, speeding and parking fines will be a thing of the past too. Not to mention the fact that alcohol will no longer present an issue for the driver or other road users.

What’s more? The very need for vehicle ownership may even become redundant. Rather than individuals or families owning vehicles that are only used for relatively short or for inefficient journeys, cars could be in-use and available 24/7. This would make them more economical and lower their environmental impact.

These vehicles, being managed by complex software and high-powered computers will also lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption by optimising driving efficiency. Moreover, electric cars are lowering the reliance upon fossil fuels causing rapid advances in renewable energy and battery technology. Reliable solar powered cars with a decent range are even on the horizon.

The replacement of people in vehicles by machines has the potential to cause massive workforce realignment. The insurance industry will have to adapt its stance as the driver is removed from the responsibility equation. There is also the cultural impact to consider, similar impacts were seen with the introduction of electronically captured bio-metrics with people initially perceiving the technology as highly suspicious and not to be trusted. Culturally, another result could be that cars will likely become less of a personal, aspirational commodity and much more of a functional one, a fact that could have sizeable effects on the automotive industry impacting sales figures, turnover and profits.

However, we are getting ahead of ourselves, Standards for Safety are still in development and will no doubt involve development of concepts outlined in ISO 26262 with systems level testing at a level that exceeds the current highest automotive safety integrity level (ASIL D). Safety criticality is the primary concern here. If autonomous vehicles are proven to be safe, drivers and society will have to learn to trust them. The only way to reach that point and the acceptance of “proven infallibility” is through thorough testing of the product before it reaches the market. Using advanced techniques to demonstrate safety, according to industry best practice will become more necessary than ever. Techniques such as static analysis and dynamic testing, including white box testing, structural code coverage, requirements-based testing, model based testing and regression testing will be an important part of the development toolkits for these technologies.

Not that long ago, a future of driverless cars was pure science-fiction rather than the “almost here tech”. In fact, the introduction of “driverless tech” is happening right now in every new car we see, ABS, Traction Control, Self-Parking, Night Vision, Lane Assist Control and Radar are all essentially the slow introduction of technologies that we will take for granted in the driverless cars of the future!

Driverless vehicles are undoubtedly the future for land-based travel. Safety will be of the utmost importance and the need for ever greater efficiency, driven by environmental concerns may be one of the key drivers.

Before we reach that point, the millions of lines of code required for vehicle autonomy, not to mention the potential for city grids and interaction with Smart Cities, will require immense software testing at the very highest levels of integrity and safety criticality.