Lack of coordination between autonomous vehicles and manned vehicles can fail “the driverless-car vision,” according to Hagai Zyss, CEO of the Israeli company Autotalks, which specializes in accident prevention through the use of dedicated short-range communication V2X (vehicle-to-everything) technology.

“The problem of coordinating autonomous and manned vehicles must deeply concern policy makers and the auto industry,” Zyss said, prior to a speech at the Jan. 17 Automobili-D show in Detroit. “Decision makers must promote automotive technologies that will prevent accidents and save lives. The resolution of the coordination issue will be one of the key challenges of the industry in the next few years.

“Many people in the industry leap in their imagination to the point in time when all vehicles on our roads will be autonomous, but not everyone pays attention to the massive challenges in the long transition period, in which most of the vehicles will be manned and we will have to share our roads with autonomous vehicles.”

Zyss made two major points. One, we’re already seeing accidents involving driverless and manned vehicles.

“Secondly, there is an inherent difficulty of human drivers to understand autonomous vehicles and vice versa,” Zyss said. “Beyond the fact that human drivers get stressed when they see an autonomous vehicle, human drivers might make sudden lane changes, presume right-of-way or run red lights in a way that makes it difficult for autonomous vehicles to expect and respond to.

“In this context, it is important to understand that integrating DSRC-based V2X solutions can solve the issue of harmonizing autonomous and manned vehicles. We at Autotalks are playing a key role in tackling this challenge. In order to support this move and realize the autonomous vehicle vision, it is important to lay down an infrastructure of legislation and regulation that together with additional technologies will ensure that the integration of autonomous vehicles into our roads will prevent accidents rather than cause accidents.”