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The Sputnik of servgoods: Autonomous vehicles

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Abstract

In an earlier paper (Tien 2015), the author defined the concept of a servgood, which can be thought of as a physical good or product enveloped by a services-oriented layer that makes the good smarter or more adaptable and customizable for a particular use. Adding another layer of physical sensors could then enhance its smartness and intelligence, especially if it were to be connected with each other or with other servgoods through the Internet of Things. Such sensed servgoods are becoming the products of the future. Indeed, autonomous vehicles can be considered the exemplar servgoods of the future; it is about decision informatics and embraces the advanced technologies of sensing (i.e., Big Data), processing (i.e., real-time analytics), reacting (i.e., real-time decision-making), and learning (i.e., deep learning). Since autonomous vehicles constitute a huge quality-of-life disruption, it is also critical to consider its policy impact on privacy and security, regulations and standards, and liability and insurance. Finally, just as the Soviet Union inaugurated the space age on October 4, 1957, with the launch of Sputnik, the first man-made object to orbit the Earth, the U. S. has inaugurated an age of automata or autonomous vehicles that can be considered to be the U. S. Sputnik of servgoods, with the full support of the U. S. government, the U. S. auto industry, the U. S. electronic industry, and the U.S. higher educational enterprise.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 33146, USA

    James M. Tien

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  1. James M. Tien
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Correspondence to James M. Tien.

Additional information

James M. Tien received the BEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the SM, EE and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has held leadership positions at Bell Telephone Laboratories, at the Rand Corporation, and at Structured Decisions Corporation. He joined the Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering at RPI in 1977, became Acting Chair of the department, joined a unique interdisciplinary Department of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems as its founding Chair, and twice served as the Acting Dean of Engineering. In 2007, he was recruited by the University of Miami to be a Distinguished Professor and Dean of its College of Engineering; effective 2016, he stepped down from the Dean’s position and remains `a Distinguished Professor. He has been awarded the IEEE Joseph G. Wohl Outstanding Career Award, the IEEE Major Educational Innovation Award, the IEEE Norbert Wiener Award, and the IBM Faculty Award. He is also an elected member of the prestigious U. S. National Academy of Engineering.

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Tien, J.M. The Sputnik of servgoods: Autonomous vehicles. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 26, 133–162 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-016-5325-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-016-5325-1

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