Three upcoming technologies will make future transportation hassle-free. These will make everyone incline towards the automobile sector. Mechanical advancement with growing hands from electronics will make this happen. These technologies will also ensure safety and eco-friendliness.
SELF DRIVING TECHNOLOGY
In today’s world, if we need to travel, we should know driving or need a driver. But these will not stay this way. We will be able to drive in a free, automatic mode. Cars will automatically give brake, control speed and change direction. By these, we will be free to do anything inside a car because the car will work by itself. For this to happen Google will join hands with auto technology.
What are they? – The heart of Google’s self-driving car is the rotating rooftop camera, Lidar, which is a laser range finder. With its array of 64 laser beams, this camera creates 3D images of objects helping the car see hazards along the way.
This device calculates how far an object is from the moving vehicle based on the time it takes for the laser beams to hit the object and come back. These high-intensity lasers can calculate distance and create images for objects in an impressive 200m range.
A camera mounted on the windshield takes care of helping the car ‘see’ objects right in front of it. These include the usual suspects- pedestrians, and other motorists.
This camera also detects and records information about road signs and traffic lights, which is intelligently interpreted by the car’s in-built software. 4 radars mounted on the car’s front and rear bumpers enable the car to be aware of vehicles in front of it and behind it.
Most of us are familiar with this technology as it is the same as the adaptive cruise control systems our cars are based on. An aerial on the rear of the car receives information about the precise location of the car, thanks to GPS.
The software has been programmed to rightly interpret common road behaviour and motorist signs. Google engineers have programmed some real-life behaviour in these cars. While the vehicle does slow down to allow other motorists to go ahead, especially in 4-way intersections, the car has also been programmed to advance ahead if it detects that the other vehicle is not moving.
CONNECTED CAR TECHNOLOGY
By 2030, connected car technology will be used by 90% of the car, meaning every car will be connected with other cars and everything connected to the internet will be connected with the car and because of this, there will be more safety.
There will be no chance of an accident on the road as every car will detect the car nearby or coming from other lanes. Because of this, a car will generate 350 MB of data every minute and with this technology, there will be more entertainment inside the car.
Cars will be a place of luxury in the near future. We will be free from phones and laptops inside cars. Many auto companies have already started working on it like Toyota and NTT collaborated to bring this tech.
BIOMETRICS AND BIOSENSORS TECHNOLOGY
This technology will provide future cars with accurate access control and better security. This will give users a key free and click-free ride. It will memorize the face of the driver by face recognition and can be changed by setting.
Window panes will automatically raise or fall by voice recognition. Not only this but all the necessary things related to security and entertainment will be done with biosensors. lidar sensors will also dominate the sector. Companies like Velodyne, leddartech, etc are manufacturing this to support the future auto sector.
The evolution of cars started from a simple cart driven by horses and animals which at present turned into cars i.e. carts without horses. Now we are expecting the future where the car will be converted to SDR (Self Driving Car) i.e. cars without drivers. In which the artificial mind or computer will take over the control of all works of a driver.
The whole transport system will be depending upon how effective and efficient the algorithms are integrating the systems of a vehicle and controlling the real-time traffic situations.
Before making assumptions about the future let’s see how it’s all started. The concept and tests on autonomous vehicle started from mid of 20th century. In 1977 Tsukuba mechanical lab in japan created an autonomous vehicle that can track the white strips of road speeds up to 30km/h.
The first self-sufficient and truly autonomous cars appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University’s Navlab and ALV projects in 1984 and Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University Munich’s Eureka Prometheus Project in 1987.
Then after entering into the 20th century the real development started. In 2004 DARPA announced a 1 million $ challenge for who would make an autonomous vehicle that can navigate through 142 miles of Mojave desert.
All teams failed that year whereas in its next edition in 2005 5 teams completed the task successfully. Then after many automobile companies invested in their R&D; to develop autonomous vehicles. Tesla, Google and Uber-like companies also entered into the competition of making self-driving cars. (Ref-Wikipedia)
According to a classification system published by SAE in 2014, there are 6 stages of vehicle autonomy.
The stages are the following,
- Level 0- No Automation- the full-time performance by the human driver of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even when enhanced by warning or intervention systems.
- Level 1-Drive Assistance- the driving mode-specific execution by a driver assistance system of either steering or acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment and with the expectation that the human driver performs all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.
- Level 2- Partial Automation- the driving mode-specific execution by one or more driver assistance systems of both steering and acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment and with the expectation that the human driver performs all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.
- Level 3- Conditional Automation- the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task with the expectation that the human driver will respond appropriately to a request to intervene.
- Level 4-High Automation- the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene.
- Level 5-Full Automation- the full-time performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver.
The eye-catching automation starts from level 3 and full automation is level 5. Audi A8 luxury sedan is the 1st car to reach level 3 automation. Googles Waymo which is in testing can be said to be in level 4. The level takes automation to the level where no human effort is needed. All the decisions will be made by AI without human intervention.
Let’s talk about the ongoing developments in the making of autonomous vehicles. In 2009 Google started research on autonomous vehicles. After 7 years it became Waymo. The company has already started testing cars on busy roads, complex city roads.
They test drive 25000 autonomous miles each week. Now they are inviting people of phoenix and AZ to test ride those cars. Tesla says all the cars produced from its factory have all the hardware for the fully autonomous cars.
Lyft has also started testing on those cars. Intel, Snapdragon and Qualcomm like processor making companies have started researching chips that will help in automized cars. Not only renowned companies but also many startups are standing up for making auto parts keeping the future in their mind. There are also researches going on the highly efficient radars, cameras, sensors, GPS systems, best catalytic converter cleaners and better connecting system between cars.
Autonomous vehicles will save the time for transport as it can be an office or home to a man where he can do everything meetings, office works, can take rest by just giving the destination in the car.
Think that you got into your car and slept, in the morning when you wake up you are at your destination. It also shows the future of more safety. The AI will be intelligent enough to make every decision efficiently with less error.
There was a time when these vehicles are just imagination but now it seems it is the real future. So we should start the countdown for the arrival of this new future.