Apple Reveals Training Program for Automated Vehicle Test Drivers

Car with Apple logo

Apple released a white paper Wednesday that set out its safety approach to automated vehicles. In particular, it outlined the requirements for drivers testing the vehicles (via CNET).

Car with Apple logo

Keeping Safety Drivers Safe

One of the key parts of the document submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) were the requirements for the human safety drivers. Apple said that these drivers will be placed on a training program that will involve:

  • Defensive driving on closed-course proving grounds
  • Vehicle-specific training in the classroom instruction, simulators, and closed-course proving grounds
  • Operational training for Automated Driving System (ADS)

The final element is supervised public road driving. Apple said that if there is an incident the testing will be paused and the data logged by the ADS will be subject to an internal investigation.

Three Key Components

The document also gave a more general description of the ADS:

Our autonomy system consists of three main components operating in a cooperative continuous loop that repeats multiple times per second. These components are responsible for sensing the environment, planning the vehicle response, and executing the planned action.

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