Author - Dhananjana Jayakody

If you were aware of the past few years business news, major attention has been grabbed by the news of the self-driving cars which would absolutely be revolutionized the transportation.

Like every mass automobile business portfolios have been invested in the researches, machines and the technologies of self-driving cars up to now. Self-driving cars are going to be much more secure than the ordinary automobiles as well. Various self-driving technologies have been developed by Google, Uber, Tesla, Nissan and by other major automakers, researchers and technological companies.

If I draw your attention about “How this self-driving car works?”, they don’t need any safety control by an external party as well as no need any human driver to be driven him. They have combined sensors and software to navigate, control and drive the vehicle. Most self-driving systems create and maintain internal laser based surrounding which based on wide range of sensors like radar. Uber self-driving system uses 64 laser beams along with other sensors to construct the internal map. Google self-driving system also uses sensors, radars, high power cameras to get the inputs.Then all inputs are processed by the software and then plot the path. After that send them to the vehicle’s actuator which controls the acceleration, braking and steering.

Hard coded algorithms helps smart object discrimination like identifying the difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle.And also it helps to follow up the traffic rules and navigate obstacles. Partially autonomous vehicles may require a human driver, but fully autonomous car does not need even a steering wheel.  These cars are more secure in driving within the idle situation but in some cases like snowing environment, some of the extra precautions are there to be managed if any point of the system fails.

Sensors dotted around the car monitor the positions of the nearby vehicles and the video cameras detect traffic lights, road signs and other obstacles. Lidar sensors help to detect the edges of the road. Ultrasonic sensors planted in the wheels can detect the position of curbs and other vehicles. When parking, all the data from the various sensors are analyzed by a central computer to manipulate the steering acceleration and the braking. No any public hesitancy a factor for these self-driving cars and within another couple of years the roads would be replaced within autonomous vehicles.

It has been estimated that 90% of traffic fatalities would be prevented through the self-driving vehicles. In 2018, one of the bad written self-driving prototypes made a road accident and then it affected for the industry. But now the technological companies are used as much as precautions to be improved the stability of the self-driving systems. Now a days Artificial Intelligence is used to teach cars how to drive as autonomous systems are learnt through examples. As an example; Ovis cars trained extensively in virtual simulations nearly for all the events on the road but sometimes the car may be made an unexpected error due to having some unambiguous situation. Nevertheless the standard or the price is not cheap of them.

If we consider the layout of the self-driving car, it is noted that it’s not like a traditional car layout, the cabin transforms into a lounge with seats that swivel to each other allowing easier communication. Touch sensors are there rather than screens and buttons and rear seats occupants are able to access the car’s functions by either pressing or drawing on the wood or fabric.

In the coming years most probably we would be able to see and experience the self-driving automobile environment as most of the large scale of automobile companies have been invested huge amounts for this aspect. The Co-founder and CEO of Tesla; Elon Musk has said that they would deploy their Tesla Models; Model S, Model 3, Model X as “Autonomous Robotaxis” in 2019. So let’s see how this upcoming trend would revolutionize the entire transportation across the world.