U.S. regulators are seeking to promote autonomous vehicle technology without picking favorites and with over-regulating the nascent industry, federal and state officials told attendees at the Automated Vehicles Symposium in Orlando.
 
"There is widespread recognition that automated vehicles will coexist with conventional vehicles and ad some point operate side-by-side with them on the highways," said Nicole Nason, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), who spoke on Wednesday.
 
"And to this point, I want to affirm the department's position this morning regarding freedom of the open road. We want to protect the freedom of all Americans to make mobility choices that best serve their needs."
 
The Department of Transportation updated its automated vehicle guidance last fall to the 3.0 version, which provides guidance on technology development and managing safety risks and "clarifies roles to avoid the conflicting patchwork of regulations that hamper innovation and provide best practices."
 
The department wants to ensure there is sufficient bandwidth for automated vehicles to operate. The 5.9 Ghz band is of "critical importance to us" to reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities — "that's why we call it the safety band."

FHWA Administrator Nason. Photo: AUVSI
 
The band is used for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, pedestrian detection, traffic monitoring, travel alerts, and much more, she said.
 
"The safety band is at the heart of our efforts to make these new AV technologies interoperable," she said. "All of these systems ... must work seamlessly together."
 
Ray Martinez, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates commercial trucking, echoed that point when he spoke on Thursday.
 
"We must ensure that the use of the safety band is protected," he said. "We believe that is critical."
 
Nason and Martinez said DOT won't pick technological favorites but wants the communications and auto industries to develop a variety of technology as long as it can use the safety band for transportation safety benefits.
 
Seeking input
 
FHWA also had a key role in administering the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which it is planning to update for the first time since 2009.
 
"We will be asking for public input later this year," Nason said. "The updated version will reflect advances in technology over the past decade and support the operation of AVs. So, I really want to stress — if you're interested, you need to comment. We read every comment. It's been a decade since we've updated it."
 
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are also seeking comment on a proposal to remove some regulatory barriers to the development of automated systems. Martinez said this is part of the DOT's overall approach to automated technology.
 
"We're not coming in here with a heavy hand. ... we are coming to listen and we're coming with an invitation" to talk to the government, he said. "This is not going to be a top-down environment."
 
As part of its outreach, last year FHWA conducted a series of six workshops on AV integration with transportation stakeholders around the country.
 
"... Safety was the main takeaway of all the workshops," Nason said. "It will be critical to not only ensure safety when AVs are fully deployed, but also while they're in the process of reaching full deployment, especially during the testing and verification period."
 
FHWA has its own multi-modal research program, the Cooperative Automation Research Mobility Application (Carma) platform, an open-source platform that "is trying to accelerate cooperative driving automation" by blending communication technology with AV functionality.
 
It has two components, Carma Platform and Carma Cloud. The platform lets automated vehicles communicate with smart infrastructure through Carma Cloud. It was made available as open-source software last year "and today we are launching an updated version of it."
 
"Carma's goal is to accelerate understanding of the benefits of cooperative automation by testing shared maneuvers such as vehicle platooning, speed harmonization, cooperative lane change and merge functions, [and] coordination of signalized intersections."
 
She noted that competitors are teaming to solve problems together, "and I think that's the only way we will achieve success."

Below: An outdoor demonstration of the EasyMile driverless shuttle. Photo: AUVSI