Self-driving cars are a very unique form of automated transportation. Automated transport in the past involved large scale systems, such as software that keeps track of bus routes or mechanisms on a railroad. Self-driving cars, however, are a very personal form of transportation. As of right now, the driver-less car prototypes that are in development are more tailored to personal use, and not for the transportation of goods or large amounts of people (like a bus would do, for example). These cars could hypothetically to do anything from drive a person to work, to the grocery store, or even to a relative’s house the next state over.
How do these cars work anyway? Google’s self-driving car project is a great example of this. Initially, Google started by placing their autonomous driving components into a line of Lexus SUV’s, but more recently have moved onto making their own prototype vehicles without steering wheels and pedals (Guynn, 2015). However, recent laws passed in California (out of which Google is based and where they test their vehicles) may cause autonomous vehicles to have mandatory steering wheels and pedals, as well as a licensed driver within the vehicle (Guynn, 2015). According to Google’s own website dedicated to this project, their prototype functions from a combination of sensors and software (2016). The sensors on the vehicle involve lasers, cameras, and radar systems. The rounded shape of the vehicles body maximizes the field-of-view of these sensors. The software side of this car uses these sensors to see where nearby cars, bicycles, and pedestrians are, and then uses various programs to predict what each nearby object will do. For example, if the Google car is coming down a road and a bicyclist is riding on the brim, the car will automatically adjust its course to avoid the bicyclist and pass them up. If a pedestrian is waiting to cross the street, the car will slow down to yield.
Some of the technology that is integrated into self-driving cars is already being used in the cars of today. Ford, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Tesla Motors, and other car companies have already implemented this technology into their moderately price vehicles (Guynn, 2015). This technology includes sensors that can detect nearby cars when switching lanes as well as sensors that will take over the braking system whenever a collision may occur with an object or pedestrian up ahead.
For the early adopters who were wondering when they could potentially be able to buy a driver-less car, below is an infographic describing the projected future in automated transportation. For more information on the background and history of automated transportation, however, click here.
Image credit: (When will you be able, 2014)
Despite its helpfulness, automation has been the subject of some public fear. Many of these fears lie in the small amount of uncertainty in how reliable the technology is. For example, in the earlier days of automated transport, a reasonable fear could be that a small component of the programming that controls the “auto-pilot” on an airplane could fail. An airline pilot may not notice this failure, due to him relying too heavily on auto-pilot. Similarly, a software glitch or hardware failure can cause a self-driving car to make an incorrect driving maneuver, such as making a lane change on a highway into a lane where a car is already present. For the safety of themselves and others, many people do feel intimidated by the idea of climbing into a mobile machine that they may not have control over if a component fails.
Despite these fears, the benefits of automated vehicles are innumerous. To see just a few of the listed pro’s and con’s of automated vehicles, click here.