Autonomous Cars- The Future?
Imagine yourself calling for your vehicle and the vehicle
comes to you by itself, you give it a destination to reach and the car takes
you there all by itself! Most of you would have already heard about many companies
working on this.
The world is moving towards autonomy and the automotive sector is no exception. A huge amount of money is being invested today to make autonomous vehicles.
An autonomous vehicle is one that simply takes
certain commands from the operator and operates all by itself. It can go anywhere traditional cargoes and do everything that an experienced human driver does.
Image credits- dzone.com
The SAE (Society of
Automotive Engineers) has divided the vehicles into five different stages of
automation.
Level 1 automation is one of the most common things seen today (automatic gear shifting). Yet the higher levels of automation are not very common and are still under development. Tesla, Inc. an American electric car company is one of the first major car manufacturers to launch commercially available autonomous vehicles in the market.
Overview of working of these autonomous
vehicles-
These vehicles are equipped with multiple cameras giving a 360-degree view around the car to its operating system. The cameras track the essential inputs like traffic light and pedestrians. Ultrasonic sensors are used to complement this vision, allowing for the detection of both hard and soft objects at a significant distance from the car. A radar with enhanced processing provides additional data about the world on a redundant wavelength that is able to see through heavy rain, fog, dust and even the car ahead. Lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors bounce pulses of light off the car’s surroundings to measure distances, detect road edges, and identify lane markings. All these inputs are managed by a machine learning-based well developed operating system and a set of instructions is delivered to the car’s actuators, which control acceleration, braking, and steering.
Said all this, the technology also comes with certain
aspects to be considered when it will be used on a mass scale-
Expensive
Self-driving cars are so exciting because they are stuffed to the brim with
space-age technology, but all this technology is currently astronomically
expensive. In general, technology grows cheaper the longer it is available to
the public, so self-driving cars may eventually be something anyone can afford.
For now, however, most companies have not released a price for their driverless
cars.
Potential for Technology to Go Wrong
Though successful programming lets us do incredible things, there is always the
potential for some unexpected glitch to emerge. Even if a self-driving car
performs flawlessly at first, it is possible for the programming that runs the
cars to be updated by the car company with a fault string of code. Errors like
this cause annoyance on our computers and mobile devices but could potentially
cause car accidents with self-driving cars.
Licensing Infrastructure Not Yet in Place
Self-driving cars also present a challenge for state and federal licensing
infrastructure. The companies claim these cars are safe, yet it is up to public
institutions to keep drivers safe. Not only do our local car licensing offices need to make sure these cars perform as advertised, but they also need to come
up with a way to license and control them quickly and efficiently. Should our
technology and hunger for these cars outpace our ability to investigate and
approve them, public safety may be at risk.
Potential for Greater Pollution
While many companies are looking at self-driving cars that use fuel-efficient
or hybrid models, should our access to self-driving cars outpace our commitment
to clean energy, we may be looking at much more pollution. Getting out of your
car at the front of the movie theatre without needing to park sounds good in
theory, but if the car you’re driving isn’t electric, emissions would be worse
then leaving your car idling while you watch the movie.
Potential Loss of Privacy
Finally, though the companies testing self-driving cars claim all pros and no
cons, using a self-driving car means a third party would have the opportunity
to track your movements. While many companies will likely avoid this due to
consumer backlash, a massive loss of privacy still exists. Because your car
would be receiving or communicating with data centres, your location would be
potentially accessible to people or organizations who could hack into the
network.
All in all, self-driving cars have the potential to be an incredible new wave
in the future of humanity. Increased productivity, rest time, and possibly
eliminating risk while driving, have the potential to greatly improve all of
our lives. Should self-driving cars be available to the public before certain
safety and privacy considerations are solved, however, they may also present
serious new complications for consumers. Regardless, self-driving cars present
a wide range of uses and a mammoth new technological world.
It is clear that this technology does have a potential provided work is done towards improving the above aspects.
CREDITS AND REFRENCES :-
- Sanket Gore-Team Tech Tuesday
-https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/what-is-autonomous-car.html
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