在底特律舉辦的WCX17 – SAE 2017全球汽車年會的收官日中，來自福特（Ford）、通用（GM）、菲亞特克萊斯勒 (FCA)、大陸（Continental）和電裝（Denso）的頂級技術(shù)專家齊聚“領(lǐng)導人圓桌會議”環(huán)節(jié)，共同討論了人工智能、網(wǎng)絡安全解決方案以及下一代人機界面（HMI）等熱門話題。
隨著工程師開始尋找為自動駕駛汽車系統(tǒng)賦予更多功能的方式方法，人工智能(AI)技術(shù)開始逐漸出現(xiàn)在人們的視野之中。通用汽車首席技術(shù)官兼通用風投部門總裁Jon Lauckner解釋說，人工智能可以很好地完成某些特定任務，比如協(xié)助自動駕駛汽車進行目標檢測及分類等。“但要想讓人工智能擁有與人類大腦同等的智慧仍非常遙遠，甚至十幾歲人類大腦的水平也很難企及。”
他補充說，“如果我們希望讓人工智能成為自動駕駛汽車系統(tǒng)的‘大腦’，無論它將以何種形式進行工作，我們的研究范圍都必須超越神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡領(lǐng)域。”
大陸集團北美總裁Jeffrey Klei指出，目前這家一級供應商共有約100名工程師和科學家正在從事人工智能方面的研究。他表示，“人工智能在我們的各個業(yè)務領(lǐng)域均有發(fā)揮作用的空間，這并非僅與自動駕駛技術(shù)開發(fā)有關(guān)。”
網(wǎng)絡安全一直是貫穿WCX17年會的熱門話題，在場的技術(shù)領(lǐng)袖對此也有自己的看法。福特研發(fā)與先進技術(shù)工程副總裁Ken Washington博士表示，“毫無疑問，網(wǎng)絡安全問題將會繼續(xù)升級，成為一個汽車行業(yè)必須著手解決的問題。”他同時指出，可以從計算機與航空領(lǐng)域吸取一些經(jīng)驗教訓。
通用汽車的Lauckner認為，汽車行業(yè)面臨的網(wǎng)絡安全挑戰(zhàn)與IT公司不同，主要任務在于保護數(shù)據(jù)元素。但他解釋說，這里要保護的數(shù)據(jù)元素并不是發(fā)送給各種車輛系統(tǒng)的指令，“而是消息，因為我們沒有時間去驗證CAN總線上的每一條消息，要知道消息驗證是需要時間的。”
在自動駕駛的應用場景中，這些消息的傳遞是以毫秒為單位的。“需要再次重申，我們并沒有很多時間去做非常復雜的消息認證，”Lauckner補充說，“我認為這里有機會出現(xiàn)一些創(chuàng)新系統(tǒng)，解決汽車面臨的挑戰(zhàn)。”
專家們還討論了下一代汽車人機界面的發(fā)展。“這完全取決于消費者，” Washington表示說，“只有仔細觀察客戶，否則你不可能知道客戶想要什么。”他指出，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)和iPhone的出現(xiàn)可能是受到技術(shù)浪潮的推動，但產(chǎn)品和技術(shù)的不斷改良，必然是來源于對用戶體驗的深刻關(guān)注與理解。
“事實上，這就是看你如何把各種技術(shù)結(jié)合在一起，打造一種客戶會喜歡的體驗。我認為，整個行業(yè)都需要在這個問題上繼續(xù)努力。”他解釋道。大陸集團的Klei宣稱，HMI應該是一種直觀的用戶功能。
“如今整個汽車行業(yè)都已經(jīng)明白，我們不能將車內(nèi)系統(tǒng)全部都升級為觸屏設備，有些情況下用戶就是需要有一些觸覺反饋，”他說，“為了行業(yè)的健康發(fā)展，我們一定要把HMI搞好，確保用戶不會對這種技術(shù)留下不好的第一印象。”
“汽車行業(yè)正在呼吁，希望能吸引全世界最優(yōu)秀的人才來解決這些相關(guān)工程挑戰(zhàn)，”FCA北美產(chǎn)品開發(fā)副總裁Phil Jansen表示，“我們的工作是為地球上的60億人口提供個人交通運輸服務。讓我們滿懷興奮的前進，而不要因為害怕而退縮，因為這是一個非常有趣的時代。”
本次“領(lǐng)導人圓桌會議”的主持人由SAE 2017年度主席 Doug Patton擔任，同時他也是電裝公司執(zhí)行副總裁兼CTO。
The role of artificial intelligence, the search for cyber security solutions, and the next level of human-machine interface in vehicles were discussed in a Leadership Roundtable of top technologists from Ford, GM, FCA, Continental and Denso, on the final day of SAE's WCX17 conference in Detroit.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the industry’s attention as engineers look over the horizon for more capability in autonomous vehicle systems. Jon Lauckner, General Motors CTO and President of GM Ventures, explained that AI is a good option for certain tasks, like getting an autonomous vehicle to do object detection and classification. “But to have the power of a human brain—even a teenager, for example—it’s very far away from that capability.”
He added, “We need to go well beyond neural networks if we’re going to deploy AI as the ‘central brain’ in any sort of an autonomous vehicle system.”
Tier 1 supplier Continental employs about 100 engineers and scientists currently working on AI, noted Jeffrey Klei, the company's North America president. “There’s room for AI in all areas of business, not just for the development of automated driving,” he said.
Cyber security was a sizzling topic throughout WCX17, and the technology leaders had their say. "Make no mistake, cyber security is going to continue to escalate as an issue that the automotive industry must address,” said Ken Washington, Ph.D, Ford's Vice President of Research and Advanced Engineering. He noted that there are cyber security lessons to be learned from the computing and aerospace industries.
According to GM's Lauckner, the auto industry’s cyber security challenges are different than those of enterprise IT, which is primarily focused on protecting data elements. But he explained that it’s not data elements sending commands to various vehicle systems. “It’s a message. And we don’t have time to authenticate each and every message that’s on a CAN bus system; authentication takes clock time,” Lauckner noted.
In an automated driving scenario, those messages are spinning around in milliseconds. “Again, you don’t have a lot of time to be doing very sophisticated message authentications,” Lauckner said, adding, “I think there are opportunities for innovations with regard to the particular systems we have on board vehicles.”
The experts also discussed next-generation human-machine interface. “It’s about the consumer,” said Washington. “You don’t know what the customer wants unless you observe them.” He noted that the Internet and Apple iPhone happened because of a technology-push, and that refinements to products and technologies happen by watching the experiences of users.
“It’s really about how you stitch it together to create an experience that customers will love. I think we need to get much better at that as an industry,” he explained. Klei of Continental asserted that HMI should be viewed by the user as an intuitive feature.
“We’ve all learned as an industry that we can’t have all touch-pad surfaces; there must be some haptic feedback in certain circumstances,” he said. “I think as an industry we have to do a better job of getting the HMI right so that the customer’s first experience is a good one.”
Attracting the world's best talent to solve these and other engineering challenges, "the automotive sector is calling," noted Phil Jansen, FCA's Vice President Product Development for NAFTA. “We’re in the business of providing personal transportation for six billion people on this planet. Walk away excited. Don’t walk away fearful because this is a very interesting time,” he told the audience.
The discussion was moderated by Doug Patton, Executive Vice President and CTO for Denso, and the 2017 SAE International President and Chair of the Board.
Author: Kami Buchholz
Source: SAE Automotive Engineering Magazine
多位技術(shù)領(lǐng)導人齊聚WCX17全球汽車年會的“領(lǐng)導人圓桌會議”環(huán)節(jié)：（左起）SAE 2017 年度主席Doug Patton、福特 KenWashington、通用汽車 Jon Lauckner，以及大陸集團Jeff Klei。（此外，未入鏡的技術(shù)專家還包括 菲亞特克萊斯勒（FCA）的Phil Jansen）