Not only is Mission Specialist training a part of our safety case for testing activities with a Mission Specialist, but the team responsible for developing the curriculum is a part of the 40+ person multi-disciplinary Safety Team at Uber ATG, giving us the opportunity to represent operational needs and perspective to the entire organization. While the scope of the Learning and Development Team has evolved over the years to meet the unique needs of those piloting and co-piloting our self-driving vehicles, the team continues to support all test operations, both at the track and on the road.
The responsibilities of a Mission Specialist are safety-critical and we have designed our training programs to reflect that. Before they join the team, Mission Specialists go through a screening process to ensure they have a current driver’s license and clean record. Then they must be internally certified to safely and effectively supervise a self-driving vehicle through an in-depth training regime. These trainings are designed to ensure that the Mission Specialist has the information, knowledge and support that they need to succeed in their role.
Throughout a Mission Specialist’s career, they will be expected to maintain this internal certification to carry out their responsibilities, which requires continuous education and yearly recertifications. Below are some key focus areas of our programs that help Mission Specialists receive and maintain their certifications.
Understanding the Mission
Before Mission Specialists get behind the wheel of an Uber developmental self-driving vehicle, they spend their first week learning about the organization and how the work they do supports our mission to bring safe, reliable self-driving transportation to the world. We believe that, as educators, we are responsible for our learners’ understanding of the impact their work has on the company’s success. It’s also easier to train learners who find meaning and take pride in their work.
Becoming A Best-in-Class Driver
Not everyone personally drives a Volvo XC90 Sport Utility Vehicle — the base vehicle we currently use to test our self-driving system. It stands to reason then that it’s important to familiarize our Mission Specialists with our modified development vehicle on its own, without self-driving capabilities enabled. Mission Specialists spend time getting certified solely to operate our self-driving cars manually. This gives us the opportunity to focus on subjects such as:
- Defensive driving techniques
- Emergency maneuvering exercises
- Fatigue management techniques
- Distracted driving prevention
Anyone piloting or co-piloting the vehicle while in self-driving will have to complete this certification, which means passing a series of in-classroom and in-vehicle assessments.
Understanding the AV System
Aside from familiarity with the vehicle itself, we spend a considerable amount of time educating Mission Specialists about how and why the vehicle is making the decisions it is. By taking Mission Specialists through the detailed data flows from the sensors of the vehicle to the controls that execute a trajectory or behavior, we create a more prepared pilot and co-pilot. Mission Specialists gain a strong practical understanding of the complete development program and process that Uber ATG undertakes giving them an advanced understanding of self-driving technology.
All of the topics that are introduced in-classroom are also reinforced in-vehicle, giving us the opportunity to take a learned concept and put it into action on the track. This helps ensure that our Mission Specialists can anticipate vehicle behavior and maintain safe operations from both positions; the pilot through manual controls, and co-pilot through system oversight.
Training Through Faults
At Uber ATG, Mission Specialists are systematically exposed to random faults injected by the vehicle’s self-driving system (such as a sudden lane departure), and environmental factors (such as unexpected road users entering the roadway). They are tested on their ability to respond to the worst possible situations. This type of training helps ensure that they have the appropriate reaction time and execute the appropriate correction maneuver.
Mission Specialists are first introduced to Basic Fault Injection Tests, which include very simple faults at low speed without outside actors or environmental factors. These injections occur during straight-line driving and are designed to introduce the learner to vehicle behaviors during a fault, such as lane drifting. Basic fault injection is a stepping stone to more complex Scenario Fault Injection Tests that represent possible situations seen out in the real world. The situations tested with a Scenario fault injection add the complexity of different road infrastructure, such as intersections, and actors, such as pedestrians and cyclists simulated using robots.
Staying Relevant and Effective
The Learning and Development team participates actively in the software development process. This means our team has a process for anticipating and managing change from software, operational policy, or operational design domain, which captures the specific conditions under which our self-driving system will operate, including where and when. When the development process, autonomy (or human) performance, a safety concern, or another avenue indicates that amendments to our training program are required, the team ensures new hire programs stay relevant. This updated training extends to current Mission Specialists by way of in-vehicle, in-classroom, computer-based training, or in a simple pre-shift brief.
What’s more, all of our training content is reviewed twice a year by the Learning and Development team, internal subject matter experts, and members of the broader Safety Team. These results are collected, analyzed, presented to the organization as evidence of our programs’ effectiveness, and serve as a rationale for the changes we make to our curricula.
Maintaining Certifications
Aside from having to pass a number of in-classroom and in-vehicle assessments, Mission Specialists participate in two key programs to maintain their certifications: Recertification and Refresh training.
Recertification Training measures Mission Specialist performance on a yearly basis and ensures continued, high-performance piloting and co-piloting skills. Regardless of a Mission Specialist’s performance or time in role, they are expected to complete Uber ATG’s Autonomy Recertification program. This program provides an opportunity for Mission Specialists to relearn skills that are rarely used in practice, such as fault injection and emergency maneuver exercises.
Refresh Training is conducted in response to time out of vehicle, a minor infraction/breach of policy, or when we identify other training opportunities that can improve Mission Specialist performance. Refresh opportunities ensure that, with the right performance diagnostic (infractions, time out of vehicle, performance reviews), Mission Specialists are given the best chance to succeed.
Building Distrust in the System
As our self-driving vehicle capabilities and performance increase over time, one may think that a Mission Specialist’s job gets easier. However, monitoring a system that fails less frequently over time is even more challenging than one that fails often. The reality is that a Mission Specialist who may have seen the vehicle stop at the same stop sign a thousand times before cannot presume that it will stop the next time. That is why the Learning and Development team’s goal, above all, is to develop a healthy level of distrust in the self-driving system.
Organization-Wide Safety Management System Education
As Uber ATG’s Safety Management System (SMS) begins to take shape, the Learning and Development team is widening its scope to ensure the broader organization understands how it contributes to safety, including how to use safety reporting tools, determine how safety-related decisions are made and who makes them, manager/leadership responsibilities within our SMS, and more. With guidance from our Safety Case Framework, we will deploy complementary educational initiatives across the company, including hosting company-wide workshops on topics such as Safety Ownership and Risk-Based Thinking.
Preparing for the Future: Remote Operations
As we look toward the future, the Learning and Development team aims to continue to support Uber ATG’s business needs, and supporting Remote Operations is a big part of that. While we will always support the in-vehicle Mission Specialist in whatever future scope they have, we are working closely with product and engineering teams to consider training needs for Remote Operators outside of the vehicle, focused on assisting the Rider and Autonomy when no one is behind the wheel of a self-driving car.
Uber ATG has made a huge commitment to supporting Mission Specialists and has empowered the Learning and Development team to be an influential force within the organization. Having Mission Specialists in our vehicles is a crucial step to delivering a fully self-driving vehicle. This post only scratches the surface of the training that we undertake and we will continue to share our work so that we can move forward as an industry together.