Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Self-driving cars are no longer just the stuff of science fiction. Increasingly, they're
becoming a reality.
For the last several years,a lot of ambitious people have been testing self-driving, autonomous
vehicles and if they ever become mainstream, their promise is better controlled and less
deadly roadways.
An autonomous car, also known as robotic or driverless , is an autonomous vehicle capable
of fulfilling the human transportation capabilities of a traditional car. As an autonomous vehicle,
it is capable of sensing its environment and navigating on its own. A human may choose
a destination, but is not required to perform any mechanical operation of the vehicle.
2:04 2:21
Now let's have a look on the most important history landmarks that increased the evolution rate of autonomous
cars.
2:37 Futurama was a ride at the 1939 New York World's
Fair designed by Norman Bel Geddes that tried to show the world 20 years into the future.
It captured the fancy of the public and critics alike, with journalists competing to find
adequate words to convey Bel Gedde’s “ingenuity”, “daring”, “showmanship”, and “genius”.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,is an agency of the United States Department
of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military.
DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have
had a major effect on the world, including computer networking, which was both the first
hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user
interface. During the 80s, the attention of the Agency
was centered on information processing and aircraft-related programs which enabled advanced
processing and to rebuild and strengthen relationships with universities after the Vietnam War.
The PROgraMme for a European Traffic of Highest Efficiency and Unprecedented Safety also known
as EUREKA Prometheus Project ,was the largest project ever in the field of driverless cars.
It received more than 1 billion dollars of funding from the European Commission, and
defined the state of the art of autonomous vehicles.
The VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge, is the challenge conceived by VisLab as an
extreme test of autonomous vehicles. It was involving four driverless vehicles
driving with virtually no human intervention on a 15,000 km trip from Italy to China.
The aim was to test and stress the current technology in a unique event: non-polluting
and non-oil based autonomous vehicles in real traffic conditions on an extreme journey between
two continents, the final outcome was a huge dataset with a very large variety of situations
to be further used.
Widespread use of autonomous cars will produce several direct advantages.
Fewer crashes, due to the autonomous system's increased reliability compared to human drivers.
Increased roadway capacity due to reduced need of safety gaps for example by platooning,
and the ability to better manage traffic flow. Relief of vehicle occupants from driving and
navigation chores. Removal of constraints on occupant's state
- it would not matter if the occupants were too young, too old or if their frame of mind
were not suitable to drive a traditional car. Furthermore, disabilities would no longer
matter. Elimination of redundant passengers - humans
are not required to take the car anywhere, as the robotic car can drive empty to wherever
it is required. Alleviation of parking scarcity as cars could
drop off passengers, park far away where space is not scarce, and return as needed to pick
up passengers. Reduced need for road signage - autonomous
cars could receive necessary communication electronically, meaning there would be no
need for physical signs, line markings or
the like.
So first you have to accept the idea that we will one day all be in driverless cars.
But the people who think about such things for a living are seriously convinced this
will happen. The question is when will it be cost-effective?
Cars will interact at intersections as much as anywhere else on the road.
Intersections will change not just because they’ll need to accommodate driverless cars,
but because driverless cars will make intersections much more efficient. Right now, you may wind
up sitting at a red light for 45 seconds even though no one is passing through the green
light in the opposite direction. But you don’t have to do that in a world where traffic flows
according to computer communication instead of the systems that have been built with human
behavior in mind.
The automatic parking assistant is a vehicle system which enables a vehicle to drive into
a parking fully automatically,finds the best option from