The A9 from Munich to Nuremburg is always busy, but the driver of this BMW 5 Series is sitting relaxed, his hands on the armrests, as the car navigates through the traffic, braking, accelerating and overtaking slower cars, all the while adapting to prevailing traffic conditions - by itself.
You or I would be anything but relaxed, but Dr Nico Kämpchen is project manager of highly automated driving at BMW, and he's already driven (or been driven, depending on your point of view) nearly 5000km like this.
BMW, like all automakers, has been working for years on electronic driver aids, from basic ABS to more sophisticated electronic co-pilots for specific situations, such as BMW TrackTrainer, which “learns” a circuit and then helps the driver put together the smoothest possible laps, automatic parking, adaptive cruise control and emergency stop assist.
Now Kämpchen and his whitecoats have taken driver assistance to (literally) the next level: the autobahn.
Their very special 5 Series has radar, ultrasound and video cameras, rain and light sensors and “intelligent software”. You drive it on to the freeway, press a button and the car does the rest.
Teaching it to overtake was easy, says Kämpchen, but their first big challenge was coping with vehicles merging on to the motorway from on-ramps. The prototype system would hit the brakes to give the other car a gap, but that’s not ideal on an autobahn, so now the car checks the prevailing speed limit, looks behind for upcoming faster traffic and then changes lanes to make space for the merging car.
He explained: “It's a whole new experience for the driver to hand over control of the car to a computer, but after a few minutes of watching its smooth, conservative driving style most drivers and passengers just relax and let the car get on with its job - although the driver is still responsible for the car's safety and has to keep an eye on the traffic and the conditions all the time.”
The system is based on two parameters: first, the car must know exactly where it is by means of high-resolution GPS, right down to where it is in its own lane (using a lane departure warning system), and what's coming up around the next bend (especially how many lanes the next stretch of road has!), and second, it must recognise all the vehicles and objects around it, and their movement.
It does that by using the Nasa principle of redundancy, checking the input from radar, ultra-sound and video cameras against each other, so that each reading is confirmed by at least two different measurements.
Kämpchen said: “The next things we want to 'teach' our prototype are how to deal with roadworks and highway junctions. Roadworks in particular are a huge challenge because they all look different, which makes detection, localisation and determining the right response more difficult.”
But, given that they could teach a car to go round the Nurburgring in a respectable if not record lap time without a driver, and an i3 prototype to hold station in heavy traffic and then park itself, he's confident they can do it.