Autonomous Vehicles in the Future

Sitting in a car that can drive by itself is scary and uncomfortable and although there have been numerous fatalities involving autonomous vehicles, there are 1.25 million car accidents a year, and for the self-driving cars, there are no cars that are completely autonomous yet and the number of accidents are only 45 each year, there are a lot of people who believe that these self-driving cars will decrease the percentage of deaths in normal accidents by up to 90%.

Autonomous vehicles can also minimize the time spent on the road, which decreases both congestion and traffic time, and the reliability of self-driving cars means less travel time, which therefore means less pollution. There will be approximately 2–4% reduction in pollution.

The Parts

In order for self-driving vehicles to be trustworthy, they need to have eyes all around their head. These cars will get to see the world in a way that no human being can ever see. Using three different sensors/radars — the LiDAR, radar, and cameras are what will make these vehicles observant 24/7. A LiDAR is a survey tool that measures the distance to a target by activating the target with a laser and using a sensor to measure the reflected light. Radar sensors can support the vision of a camera in periods of low visibility, such as driving at night and enhance self-driving car detection. Cameras look at what is around the car, such as pedestrians, soccer balls, sidewalks, etc…

These cars also have five main parts: computer vision, sensor fusion, localization, path planning, and control. Autonomous Vehicles use the LiDAR along with other GPS systems to figure out where the car is located. It is proven that the driver is the most unreliable part of a car.

Computer vision: is how we see the road using cameras. When driving a vehicle with literally humans show the power of vision. We can use camera images to identify lane lines for a self-driving car, or we can follow other cars on the road.

Sensor fusion: This is how we combine data from other sensors, such as radar and LiDAR, along with the data from a camera — to create a detailed vehicle environment understanding.

Localization: That’s how we find out where we are outside, the next move after knowing how the world looks like.

Path planning: by observing what vehicles around the car will do, the car makes choices on which path to stay on or whether pr not to move.

Control: the vehicle now needs to stay in control and balanced now that it is on the right path.

The Change is Gradual

When self-driving cars start to hit the roads, there will be a mix of human-driven cars and cars that drive by themselves with no driver and it can get scary. These autonomous vehicles are too perfect and believe it or not, it is a big problem. These vehicles follow every speed limit, law, and traffic light and this would not be a problem if every human on the road stuck with the law, but we don’t. Our speeding, quick changes in the lane, it can confuse the driverless cars and accidents can occur. One way to fix this is for us humans to fix ourselves, we have to start becoming patient and responsible. Soon, we will not own any normal cars and there will be no integration of self-driving cars with regular cars, so it won’t matter.

A lot of people are also too nervous to even get in a self-driving car let alone buy one. This is because people think they cannot trust a car and some people are new and not used to it. Getting in a car that can drive by itself is pretty scary and it is just something people have to start to adapt to. The new generations are bringing in new technologies and it will change the world from self-driving vehicles all the way to curing cancer! But I think that we will soon get used to the fact that there are self-driving cars on the road.

Impacting the Future

Self-driving cars will change urban mobility significantly and even decrease the number of traffic fines.

pros:

• number of lives saved -> (social benefits)
• commute times are quicker
• increase in safety, people will be safe (pedestrians, cyclists)
• environmentally friendly
• some people don’t like driving, these cars will make it easier

cons:

• privacy loss
• costly
• can be hacked
• unreliable -> technology can fail

In the end, the pros outweigh the cons and self-driving cars will hit the roads in only 8–10 years! So for now, I think humans should train themselves for what is coming.

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