Behind the Scenes of Autonomous Driving Research at TIER IV
Our series TIER IV PEOPLE shines a light on the people and teams whose unique experiences, backgrounds, and stories bring our mission to life.
Simon Thompson | R&D Team, Engineering Director
Simon Thompson joined TIER IV in 2019 to lead internal research activity, facilitate global research initiatives and support TIER IV engagement with global ecosystem partners.
Prior to joining TIER IV, he worked at the National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST, Japan) on robot autonomy for a range of robots from small indoor robots, to humanoids and large construction vehicles.
What is your current role at TIER IV, AWF and MIH?
Well, I have a wide variety of roles.
For TIER IV I’m the leader of the research team and within the team we manage quite a few projects with outside universities and companies both overseas and in Japan. We also do research within TIER IV when it fits more into the application to products we’ve created. With the Autoware Foundation (AWF) I’m on the Steering Committee of the Autoware Centre of Excellence, which is a global group of universities which are looking to promote Autoware as a research platform. Finally with the MIH Consortium (MIH) I work on the Autonomy Working Group where we are defining a set of standards for open electric vehicles (EVs). We’re working with the aim of defining an open platform for EVs which will become the global standard, similar to the Android platform for mobile phones.
Why did you join TIER IV?
To realize autonomous driving (AD) on public roads. I’ve been working in research for autonomous, mobile robots for about twenty years in Japan. The work we did ranged from very small robots to very large trucks. While it’s always been a joy working with these, the publishing cycle in academia meant that projects rarely get past the "Proof of Concept" stage, so working on AD at TIER IV was a chance to fully actualize and build a product and get it out into the real world.
How did you come about building robots in Japan?
I did a PHD at the Australian National University and during my time there we had quite close ties to Japan with collaborative research projects and I was fortunate enough to receive a research scholarship to visit Japan at that time. While I was in Japan I was able to form connections, so when I was looking for a job after my PHD was completed the next natural step was to look for a job there. Japan has invested a great deal and created quite advanced robotics, so the rest is history.
What was your first impression of working in Japan?
It was very positive. Maybe since I came into an academic university research environment, I was not exposed to some of the negative stereotypes of Japanese work culture. In research, the output is always the focus, and in Japan I found the support and facilities to pursue my own research ideas. Then joining a research-based spin-off startup like TIER IV, the founders were a quite global facing, with lots of experience collaborating with people from around the world, so the atmosphere with TIER IV has always been quite relaxed as well.
Could you expand on your previous collaborative experiences with TIER IV?
During my time in academia that time we did a project with Professor Kato (founder of TIER IV) and collaborated on what turned out to be the basis for Autoware, which is the software that TIER IV produces, and so we’ve had a great working relationship for a while now. When I heard that TIER IV was going to set up a research division, I decided to make the move to join the team.
What did you think of the initial proposal of coming to work at TIER IV?
At the time, I was already looking for ways to move beyond research projects, where the goal is to get published, to move to getting a physical product moving in society and having an effect on people’s lives. TIER IV’s vision is different from other companies who might be looking to make a profit as their sole goal. Its focus is open source and collaboration to work on something bigger than a profit margin to in a way democratize the benefits of AD technology.
At the start of a research project do all the companies work collaboratively or is it independently?
It’s a mix that needs a great sense of balance, TIER IV holds a deep knowledge of Autoware and deploying AVs in real world environments, and so we try to set the direction of research with questions such as “What is Autoware missing?” “What are the immediate challenges applying Autoware to public roads?”. So we try to share that knowledge with the universities and other companies for them to independently research those areas and feed the results back into Autoware. For closer, collaborative research, we need to find problems that are application-focused, with outstanding research questions, but also with a clear path for the output to feed into product development.
What was TIER IV like when you joined? How has it changed?
It was much smaller, we were all working out of a cramped office so it was a bit crowded. Overall, the scope of the business has changed a lot. At that time it was very proof of concept-focused, developing basic capabilities for AD and the market that we were trying to enter was very domestically oriented within Japan. Since then the maturity of TIER IV products have grown considerably, we try to define and produce specific products for a range of operational design domains (ODDs) , and have several products deployed in the real world. Also the scale of the market that we’re targeting has shifted from solely domestic to the global market, and now we have more engagement from those global universities and companies. We’ve also been able to open offices in North America, and in China. Hopefully, they’re not quite as cramped as we were.
What is an accomplishment that you’ve been really proud to see from the development of TIER IV?
What stands out to me is when the Autoware Foundation started, the software was only a research-level project. Coming out of university, it had a lot of code in it that was still only research level and not well tested. So the first major step of AWF was to convert that code base into a rigorously tested, professional code base to then do their first demonstration: an autonomous parking valet. Foundation members, as a group, worked on that project together taking the code from research level, to near production standard, and then performing the demonstration. They ran the parking demonstration live in North America and it was really successful. So I can say being a part of that was just plain cool.
In your opinion, what would you say is the hallmark of TIER IV from other organizations who might be investing in AD?
The collaboration and ecosystem that we’re creating with all our different partners. That we recognize we can’t solve all our challenges alone, we need to partner with other organizations that can provide different parts of the solution. I feel that’s exactly what bigger companies are finding as well, that to try and produce an AV from one company requires quite a lot of investment. So now they’re deciding they can’t continue making that investment without a return. So I think that from the side of TIER IV, the benefit of reducing the barrier of entry to many different companies and working together is the collaboration that reduces risks to everyone involved. It provides the opportunity for many different ideas to come together and hopefully find a solution.
What is MIH and how do you engage with TIER IV and AWF?
MIH stands for Mobility in Harmony, it’s an organization that was formed by Foxconn and over 2,000 companies are joined in this consortium with the idea to work together to define the open standard for EVs. We work towards the goal that the MIH Open EV Kit will be the de facto standard for building EVs and allow many different companies and organizations around the world to enter the EV market with tools that everyone can apply to decrease the barrier of entry into the market. For TIER IV we can bring Autoware to the EV platform and propose Autoware as an open source platform that anyone can use and build their own proof of concept vehicles that can autonomously drive. What we expect to see is the potential market for Autoware to expand dramatically if we can keep the software platform consistent with the open standards. Being involved with those standards makes it easier to guide and fit the definitions when we work with potential customers.
TIER IV co-exhibited with MIH at CES 2023
How do you collaborate?
Being involved with a project to create the MIH Open EV Kit is kind of a new concept. So the first area they work on is setting up the working groups composed of different members from all the allied organizations and within the groups to work on different areas of the EV platform. My colleague (previously interviewed) Christian John is the leader of the MIH Autonomy Working Group and there are other working groups such as CockPit, Information, Telematics, Electronic and Electronic Architecture etc, that cover other areas of the vehicle. For example, I personally lead a sub-group called the Sensor API Working Group. We try to define all the interfaces that are necessary to take data from the different sensors mounted on the car and to feed that information into AD systems or advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Basically my whole job is to facilitate the collaboration between members to define the open standard for sensors to go along with the rest of the vehicle.
How do you foresee the future goals of collaboration between TIER IV and MIH?
Currently, to continue working towards the Open EV standard. We’ve proposed the first standard for Drive by Wire which is how steering commands and acceleration commands are passed to the EV base. Now we’re doing the Sensor API and we will continue doing different parts of the AD solution until we get a complete definition for the development of ADs. At the same time, we are looking to partner with MIH on other projects, such as Project X. It will be one of their first vehicles which they will sell around the world as their first attempt to enter the EV market. It’s designed to be modular and expandable. We’re currently exploring the different ways to package the MIH vehicle with Autoware and bring TIER IV and other MIH partners into the marketplace.
What do you see as the challenges with collaboration?
Since this is such a large consortium of many different partners, there are also many language and cultural differences. When everyone is working to define a single standard with a variety of solutions, it’s important to listen and collect all the different viewpoints and go step by step to gain a consensus to define what is most important. For instance, for a particular autonomous function, how do we address it through an open standard while trying to balance the interests of all the different members who are promoting the benefits of their own particular solution? That’s been one of the main challenges with this scale of collaboration.
If you could define this giant collaboration in one word what would it be?
It’s extremely motivating.
There are so many moving parts that have to come together, and we, in AD in particular, don’t even have all the answers. When those challenges are presented, everything that goes along with it and trying to find that solution is definitely motivating.
What would you say to the general public that might feel uneasy about the idea of “automatic cars”?
I was one of those people!
The idea of cars driving autonomously on the road and replacing passenger vehicles is kind of far out. What the industry is learning is that there are these intermediate steps that can be taken to introduce the technology step by step thus building the range of deployment up over time. While doing that it’s a chance to build up the confidence that people in society have for AV, so it won’t be this big switch from nothing to everything autonomously running around. There will be an incremental advancement such as deliveries might be transported within a set distance with an autonomous robot then moving to large scale vehicles. There was even an announcement recently that Japan is thinking of making an autonomous truck lane between Nagoya and Tokyo for some portions of the highway. So that’s the start of the step by step build up that can start gaining confidence with the public.
Who would be an ideal candidate to work with TIER IV?
Coming from the research side, someone who is naturally inquisitive. Being able to apply themselves to achieve expertise in a given domain is what I tend to look for. Since we are also in an industry that’s constantly evolving, someone who can “argue their case” so to speak. Being confident in their point of view, but also mature enough to argue it constructively. It’s a really fine balance, especially in a company such as ours where you may have to get your point across different languages and cultures. This technical and intellectual curiosity crossed with a maturity to work collaboratively with a global workforce is what I think is really important.
If someone were to observe a meeting at TIER IV, what would they see in regards to teamwork?
There’s a lot of communication. Going back to my earlier answers and the massive scale of everyone involved from many different areas means we communicate A LOT. The one good and bad thing about TIER IV is that we cover so many different elements with so many different teams and experts, but you can’t be working independently. It has to be in constant communication since what each part does directly influences all the other parts. We have to design a very clear communication framework with each team where they have access to the information they need to perform their roles.So if someone were to come and observe they would see this dissemination of ideas and activity, and, hopefully, also the necessity for it.
What is the expectation that you hold for your colleagues?
I expect my colleagues to approach their work enthusiastically with diligence and honesty!
Do you have a message for future candidates or current members of TIER IV?
TIER IV has a lot of potential in delivering products that can change and have a great positive effect on society. We are moving from a startup to being a profitable company and it’s in a very technological challenging field as such I think there’s many challenges and opportunities for every team member. Especially if someone has the motivation and the drive to make a big change then TIER IV is the perfect opportunity for that.
TIER IV is looking for candidates who are highly motivated and share our vision of “The Art of Open Source, Reimagine Intelligent Vehicles.”
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