Information security technology is an important factor in the success of intelligent connected vehicles

Intelligent connected vehicles refer to a new generation of vehicles that are equipped with advanced on-board sensors, controllers, actuators and other devices, and integrate modern communication and network technologies to achieve intelligent information exchange and sharing between vehicles and X (people, vehicles, roads, cloud, etc.). They have functions such as complex environment perception, intelligent decision-making, and collaborative control, and can achieve safe, efficient, comfortable, and energy-saving driving, and can ultimately replace human operation.

Intelligent connected vehicles are also commonly referred to as smart cars, self-driving cars, etc.

The key technologies of intelligent connected vehicles include: environmental perception technology, which uses a single sensor or multiple sensor fusion technology to perceive the vehicle itself, surrounding vehicles, roads, pedestrians, traffic signals, signs, conditions and other environmental conditions.

Wireless communication technology includes long-distance wireless communication technology and short-distance communication technology. Long-distance communication technology mainly uses 4G/5G technology to provide instant Internet access; short-distance communication technology includes dedicated short-range communication technology (DSRC), radio frequency identification technology (RFID), Bluetooth, etc.

Intelligent interconnection technology, when two vehicles are far apart or blocked by obstacles and direct communication cannot be completed, it is necessary to establish a vehicle self-organizing network through roadside facilities and rely on short-range communication technology to achieve communication between V2V and V2I.

Information fusion technology uses computer technology to analyze and process multi-source data information to generate real-time, effective and complete comprehensive information to achieve classification tasks for different applications.

Human-machine interface technology, including voice control, gesture recognition, touch screen technology, etc., aims to provide a good user experience.

Information security and privacy protection technology protects the real-time transmission of vehicle location and related information when smart connected vehicles are connected to the network.

The system structure of an intelligent connected vehicle generally includes an environmental perception layer, an intelligent decision-making layer, and a control and execution layer.

The environmental perception layer is mainly composed of various sensors and intelligent perception algorithms, which are used to perceive the real-time environmental conditions on the vehicle's driving route;

The intelligent decision-making layer is mainly composed of control machinery, control circuits or software and hardware systems, which are used to decide what operations to apply to the vehicle based on environmental information;

The control and execution layer mainly realizes driving tasks such as braking and driving control, steering control, gear control, safety warning control, etc. directly or indirectly through the vehicle's control interface.

Grading

The technical classification of intelligent connected vehicles is not exactly the same in major countries. For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the United States divides it into five levels (Level 0 for non-autonomous driving, Level 1 for driver assistance, Level 2 for semi-autonomous driving, Level 3 for highly automated driving, and Level 4 for fully automated driving).

The German Federal Highway Research Institute divides vehicles into three levels: partially automated driving, highly automated driving, and fully automated driving.

"Made in China 2025" divides intelligent connected vehicles into four levels: assisted driving (DA), partially automated driving (PA), highly automated driving (HA), and fully automated driving (FA). Later, conditional automated driving (CA) was added after PA, making it a total of five technical levels.

In order to better distinguish different levels of autonomous driving technology, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International) released a six-level classification system for autonomous driving in 2014. Today, most mainstream autonomous driving researchers have adopted the SAE standard as the prevailing classification principle.

The SAE standard divides autonomous driving technology into six levels from low to high: no autonomous driving (L0), assisted driving (L1), partial autonomous driving (L2), conditional autonomous driving (L3), highly autonomous driving (L4), and fully autonomous driving (L5).

In the L3 technical standard defined by SAE, the task of monitoring the road is completed by the autonomous driving system. This is a huge difference from L2. Technicians usually regard the dividing line between L2 and L3 as the difference between "assisted driving" and "autonomous driving".

Currently, global autonomous driving technology is mainly at the L2 and L3 stages.

domestic

At the national level, in May 2015, the State Council issued the "Made in China 2025" plan, which proposed the long-term development goals and development priorities of intelligent connected vehicles. Since then, the development of domestic intelligent connected vehicles has generally been divided into two directions.

First, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will lead the relevant technical standards for intelligent connected vehicles to promote the development of the industry.

In April 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other ministries issued the "Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for the Automobile Industry", proposing to intensify research on key technologies for intelligent connected vehicles and carry out demonstration and promotion of intelligent connected vehicles.

In September, a research group was organized to study the management specifications for the public road adaptability verification of intelligent connected vehicles, including application, testing, accident handling and other contents.

In December, the "Guidelines for the Construction of the National Internet of Vehicles Industry Standard System (Intelligent Connected Vehicles)" was released, proposing the strategic goal of establishing my country's intelligent connected vehicle standards system in stages.

In March this year, the "Key Points for Intelligent Connected Vehicle Standardization Work in 2018" was issued to promote the research and formulation of technical standards for intelligent connected vehicles.

The second is the National Development and Reform Commission's leading industrial development strategy.

In early January 2018, the National Development and Reform Commission announced the "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy" (draft for comments) that it had researched and drafted, proposing to build six major industrial systems including technology innovation system, industrial ecological system, road network facilities system, legal and regulatory standards system, product supervision system, and safety assurance system.

By 2020, low- and medium-level smart cars will achieve large-scale production, and medium- and high-level smart cars will achieve market application; by 2035, China's standard smart cars will be renowned around the world, and China will be the first to become a smart car power.

A series of policy documents issued at the national government level have played an effective and positive role in supporting and standardizing the public road adaptability verification of intelligent connected vehicles, and promoting the development and industrial application of intelligent and connected vehicle technologies.

At the local level, we generally promote trial and error.

Before the three ministries jointly issued the road test management specifications, six places including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Pingtan, Fujian, Baoding, Hebei, and Shenzhen had issued relevant regulations or draft opinions. Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Pingtan, Fujian and other places have opened road tests, and more and more cities have started to use closed test sites.

The above cities have shown the following characteristics in the process of promoting the development of intelligent connected vehicles:

First, policy regulations should be made first to ensure road testing.

Since the end of 2017, cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen have successively issued relevant regulations on the management of road testing of autonomous vehicles (Shenzhen is a draft for soliciting opinions), which have made clear requirements on testing entities, test vehicles, test personnel, test applications, violations and accident handling.

Local policies have laid a practical foundation for the three ministries to jointly issue road test management regulations.

The second is to open roads for actual testing and issue driving licenses.

On March 1 this year, Shanghai took the lead in issuing the first batch of autonomous driving licenses in China, opening a 5.6-kilometer road test in Jiading District. Subsequently, Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Pingtan, Fujian successively issued test licenses to companies.

Among them, Shenzhen and Pingtan, Fujian, took the lead in testing the autonomous driving of large buses.

The third is to build a testing base to promote industrial development.

In June 2016, the first closed test area of ​​the "National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Shanghai) Pilot Demonstration Zone" in China approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was officially opened and put into operation. Subsequently, the intelligent connected demonstration zone was extended to Beijing-Hebei, Zhejiang, Chongqing, Wuxi, Jiangsu and other places.

At the same time, demonstration zone projects led by local governments are blossoming in many places. Guangdong is planning to build an unmanned driving experimental base in northern Guangdong; Wuhan and Shenzhen are planning to build "unmanned driving" towns, and Panjin, Liaoning is cooperating with BAIC on a smart commercial vehicle project.

The construction of the experimental testing base provides a good foundation for the development of the local intelligent connected vehicle industry.

Comparative analysis of the relevant policies and regulations has the following main features:

From the perspective of organizational management, local management agencies have established joint working groups with relevant government departments and entrusted a third party to be responsible for daily vehicle testing supervision or application acceptance.

From the perspective of the testing entity, the testing entity is required to have a certain compensation ability and must purchase traffic accident liability insurance of no less than RMB 5 million or provide a traffic accident compensation guarantee of no less than RMB 5 million.

The three ministries, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen clearly stated that the testing entities are legal entities registered in China, which reflects that local governments are guiding relevant companies to conduct testing in the country.

From the perspective of test drivers, in addition to requiring test drivers to have intelligent driving training experience, Beijing and Chongqing propose that drivers should have more than three years of driving experience and no experience of drug driving or drunk driving; the three ministries and Shanghai have put forward stricter restrictions for drivers with 12 points or more, serious violations and accident records.

At the same time, to ensure test safety, Shanghai and Chongqing have stipulated the test working hours for test drivers.

From the perspective of test vehicles, both require that signs be posted on autonomous driving test vehicles to clearly distinguish them from ordinary vehicles; both clearly state that test vehicles must have both "manual operation" and "autonomous driving" modes to ensure that test drivers can directly intervene and control the vehicle at any time; both require that vehicles be able to automatically record and save data information within a certain period of time (60s or 90s) before an accident or failure occurs; both clearly state that test vehicles must not carry personnel or items not related to the test during the test.

From the perspective of test items, compared with Beijing's complex assessment of vehicle autonomous driving capabilities and Shanghai's regulations that limit 17 test items, Chongqing has not limited vehicle test items, which means that its autonomous driving vehicle testing items can be richer.

From the perspective of violation and accident handling, it is clearly stated that the public security traffic management department shall handle accidents and violations during the testing process in accordance with the current road traffic safety laws and regulations, and the test driver or test vehicle shall bear the corresponding legal responsibility.

foreign

In March 2016, the United Nations issued an amendment to the International Convention on Road Traffic, allowing cars to drive autonomously within a specific period of time.

At present, countries around the world are actively investing in and supporting driverless technology. Developed countries such as the United States, the European Union, and Japan are at the forefront of the world in legislation, technical research, and experimental testing.

The United States regards the development of intelligent connected vehicles as a key task in the development of its intelligent transportation system, and guides industrial development by formulating national strategies and regulations.

As early as 2009, Google created the self-driving car project. In 2012, Google's self-driving cars obtained the first batch of licenses issued by the state of Nevada. In 2016, the United States issued the "Federal Self-Driving Car Policy Guidelines". In September 2017, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued "Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Safety Vision", which replaced the previous guidelines and mainly targeted Level 3 to Level 5 autonomous driving systems. In the same month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the first U.S. self-driving car bill (H.R. 3388) to unify the fragmented regulations of various states.

By the end of 2017, Washington, D.C. and 21 states had passed legislation on self-driving cars.

Currently, the two major driverless test demonstration areas in the United States are located in Detroit in the east and Silicon Valley in the west. Among them, the University of Michigan in the east is the world's first driverless test area built for testing driverless cars and V2V/V2I vehicle networking technologies.

Japan started researching intelligent transportation systems early on, and the government actively played a cross-departmental collaborative role to promote the implementation of intelligent connected vehicle projects.

In May 2016, Japan's IT Comprehensive Strategy Headquarters formulated a roadmap for the popularization of autonomous driving, which will allow driverless passenger cars to be on the road in some areas in 2020; in the same month, the Japanese National Police Agency promulgated the "Guidelines for Road Testing of Autonomous Driving Vehicles" and initiated the revision of the "Road Traffic Law" and "Road Transport Vehicle Law."

In April 2017, the Japanese government included traffic accidents during autonomous driving as eligible for compensation under automobile insurance.

In June 2017, the National Police Agency of Japan issued the "Remote Automated Driving System Road Test Permit Processing Standards", allowing cars to be tested on the road with no one in the driver's seat.

The EU supports technological innovation and application of results in intelligent connected vehicles and maintains its leading edge in the world.

In 2014, the European Union, together with more than a dozen European vehicle manufacturers and parts suppliers, launched the "Adaptive" project (Intelligent Vehicle Autonomous Driving Applications and Technologies), aiming to develop partially or fully automated vehicles that can travel on urban roads and highways.

It also promotes the research and development and application of intelligent connected vehicles by issuing a series of policies and autonomous driving roadmaps, and guides the development of the intelligent connected vehicle industry in member countries.

Germany was the first country to introduce the concept of driverless cars, and in 2014 it conducted field tests of driverless cars on highways, urban and country roads.

In May 2017, the German Federal Senate passed the first law on autonomous driving, allowing cars' autonomous driving systems to replace human driving under certain conditions in the future.

Sweden officially opened the AstaZero safety technology integrated test field in August 2014. The test field has crowded urban roads, highways, multi-lane parallel roads, roundabouts and intersections. It is mainly used to test active safety systems to prevent accidents and explore future safety technologies, and is committed to achieving zero deaths in world traffic.

Singapore established the Autonomous Vehicle Initiative Committee in August 2014 to oversee the research and testing of autonomous vehicles.

The autonomous driving trial is being conducted at the One Tech City and is led by Singapore's land and transport departments.

An autonomous driving test route was opened at the end of 2017, allowing autonomous vehicles to be tested on public roads within permitted areas.

In August 2016, NuTonomy, the world's first self-driving taxi, officially began operating and carrying passengers in Singapore.

Singapore's self-driving shuttle service began operating in early 2017.

challenge

The transition of intelligent connected vehicles from closed test sites to real driving environments is not only a purely technical issue, but also poses new challenges to many fields.

First, legal systems and policy standards need to keep pace with technological advances.

Compared with the continuous research and improvement of autonomous driving technology, the country still lacks strategic top-level design, laws and regulations cannot effectively support the legal use of intelligent connected vehicles on the road, policies and systems cannot effectively guarantee the safe passage of intelligent connected vehicles, technical standards cannot effectively guarantee the reliable operation of intelligent connected vehicles, and there is a lack of legal protection system, evaluation system, and insurance system for actual testing of vehicles on the road.

Second, ethical issues are key factors restricting the commercialization and large-scale popularization of autonomous driving.

A British philosopher once proposed a thought experiment called the "trolley problem", which is: faced with a high-speed out-of-control tram, five people on the original track are about to be hit, but if the switch is moved to another track, one person will be hit. What choice should be made?

Smart connected cars face the same challenge.

In autonomous driving mode, the car control system faces situations that it has never encountered before, which may also cause traffic accidents. How to make decisions before an impending accident becomes an ethical problem that autonomous driving must face.

Third, it puts forward new requirements and new challenges for driver skills and industry development.

Before achieving fully autonomous driving, vehicles cannot do without the control and supervision of human drivers, especially in the stages of assisted driving, partial autonomous driving, and conditional autonomous driving.

Drivers need to receive corresponding training and assessment in response to the technical requirements at different stages. The existing driver training and examination system needs to be optimized, adjusted, or even reshaped in conjunction with the development of intelligent connected vehicles.

When autonomous driving systems can completely replace human drivers, the traditional transportation industry will inevitably be impacted, the industrial structure will face transformation, and industry unemployment will be a problem that plagues the commercialization of autonomous driving.

Fourth, public information security and citizens’ personal privacy are facing threats.

When smart connected cars are connected to the Internet, they also bring about information security issues. When used, the information of each car and even the owner will be transmitted to the network anytime and anywhere. The current anti-terrorism situation is severe, and a large amount of wireless communication content on the road may involve public safety or personal privacy.

If location information is leaked, communications are maliciously attacked, information is intercepted or even tampered with, or vehicles are hacked and remotely controlled, serious consequences will occur.

At the same time, the public is resistant to the possibility of their personal privacy being leaked.

Fifth, public security traffic management and law enforcement services face new opportunities and challenges.

From a certain perspective, autonomous driving technology is safer than driving a car with human drivers. It will not cause accidents due to driver problems such as fatigue driving, distracted driving, drunk driving, etc., which reduces the huge workload of traffic management departments in investigating and punishing drivers' violations.

However, when a vehicle violates a law or has an accident while in autonomous driving mode, traffic management departments face new challenges in terms of how to punish the violation, define accident responsibility, determine the cause of the accident, and implement rescue in a timely manner.

suggestion

A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is emerging, and intelligent connected vehicles have become the strategic commanding heights for the development of the future automotive industry.

In order to effectively promote the development of the intelligent connected vehicle industry and support the strategy of building a strong manufacturing country, the following work suggestions are put forward:

First, adhere to two attitudes.

Intelligent connected vehicles are still in the early stages of application testing in China. We should always maintain an attitude of "prudent tolerance, encouragement and support", always take "life first, safety first" as a development guide, not be blindly conservative or over-exaggerated, use technology but not be superstitious about it.

We must plan ahead, conduct research in advance, and respond prudently to legal systems, technical standards, etc. related to the public security traffic management department.

The second is to coordinate the two aspects well.

Coordinate top-level design, determine the leading competent department, clarify responsibilities, clarify policies, and work together to promote technology and industrial development; coordinate grassroots applications, focus on the coordination of national-level policies and systems with local-level actual applications, ensure the uniformity of national-level policies, ensure the flexibility of local-level policies, and ensure the steady and orderly development of intelligent connected vehicles.

The third is to strengthen the two synchronizations.

On the one hand, the development of intelligent connected vehicles requires perfect supporting guarantees. At the same time, we should explore and establish legal systems and standard systems for intelligent vehicle design, testing, production, market access, sales, registration, road traffic and traffic accident handling, legal liability, etc. that are suitable for China's national conditions. We should study in advance how to amend and improve the "Road Traffic Safety Law" and other traffic laws and regulations, make advance disposal and judgment for possible violations and accidents, strengthen the reserve and application of vehicle management, driver examinations, road traffic tests and road management policies, promote the standardization, standardization and informatization of supporting facilities such as road traffic lights, signs and markings, lay the foundation of the legal system and standard system for the industrialization and marketization of intelligent vehicles, and strengthen the matching of policies and technological progress.

On the other hand, domestic autonomous driving technology is still in the exploratory stage, and the overall technical level is still somewhat behind that of developed countries. It is imperative to simultaneously strengthen the research and development of core technologies such as sensors, control chips, Beidou high-precision positioning, vehicle terminals, and operating systems, and form a complete production and manufacturing system for intelligent connected vehicles, laying a good foundation for the Made in China 2025 strategy.

Fourth, provide good protection.

Information security technology is an important factor in the success of intelligent connected vehicles. It is necessary to regulate the collection, use and disclosure of consumer information by intelligent vehicle manufacturers, system suppliers and network operators, strengthen the security of the intelligent connected vehicle system, strengthen the research on identity authentication, data encryption, network security technology and privacy protection technology in wireless communications, and actively prevent criminals from stealing and destroying network information, so as to provide reliable protection for information security.