Autonomous cars-the driverless revolution

As the technology gets cheaper, the driverless car future will increasingly become a reality. An autonomous car is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. Autonomous cars can detect surroundings using a variety of techniques such as radar, lidar, GPS, odometry, and computer vision.

The world’s first “self-driving” taxi service has been launched in Singapore – albeit with a human backup driver and co-pilot on board for the time being. Several events from the last months provide a strong signal that autonomous vehicle technology has led the auto industry to a pivotal point. Despite recent safety concerns, Tesla, an electric-car maker, is making progress with its Autopilot system. In 2017 Volvo, which is also working with Uber to get cars to drive themselves, will test self-driving cars by handing them for the first time to a select group of ordinary motorists. And in August, Ford said it would launch a fully-autonomous car, without steering wheel or pedals, for car-sharing schemes by 2021.

Potential advantages

• Average vehicle utilisation globally is reckoned to be just 5 per cent, or little more than an hour a day. Most people reasonably see the car as an essential feature of modern life. Yet the cost of buying, maintaining, and keeping a vehicle on the road is also one of the most inefficient uses of money and physical resources known to man. Among the anticipated benefits of automated cars is the potential reduction in traffic collisions (and resulting deaths and injuries and costs), caused by human-driver errors, such as delayed reaction time, tailgating, rubbernecking, and other forms of distracted or aggressive driving.
• Automated cars could also reduce labor costs and this technology would lift constraints on occupant ability and age parameters, as it would not matter if all the parties on board were under age, over age, blind, distracted, intoxicated, prone to seizures, or otherwise impaired.
• Additional advantages could include higher speed limits; smoother rides; increased roadway capacity; and minimized traffic congestion, due to decreased need for safety gaps.
• Furthermore, new business models (such as mobility as a service) can develop, which aim to be cheaper than car ownership by removing the cost of the driver. Finally, the robotic car could drive unoccupied to wherever it is required, such as to pick up passengers or to go in for maintenance (eliminating redundant passengers)

Potential obstacles

• Loss of driving-related jobs. Resistance from professional drivers and unions who perceive job losses.
• Gestures and non-verbal cues by police and pedestrians are not adapted to autonomous driving
• Many factories will have to be completely re-tooled, rendering billions of already sunk capital substantially obsolete and wreaking havoc in existing supply chains.
• Implementation of legal framework and establishment of government regulations for self-driving cars
• Disputes concerning liability
• Current road infrastructure may need changes for autonomous cars to function optimally
• Self-driving cars could potentially be loaded with explosives and used as bombs
• Autonomous cars may require very high-quality specialised maps to operate properly.
• Where are the jobs going to come from for the likes of Uber’s displaced drivers? At this stage, it is not entirely clear. Suffice it to say that the destruction of old jobs invariably creates new ones, in this case in millimetre-wave radar, cameras, laser radar, ultrasonics and logistics.
• Driverless cars promise to transform the market in ways which the incumbents will find bruising and difficult. Traditional automotive business models will be stood on their heads. Once driverless, the car can theoretically be kept in operation 24 hours a day, rather in the manner of a taxi, only without the human driver. Cars will thus become quite widely shared, with many choosing not to own one at all. We will need far fewer cars for the same amount of usage.

By: Dr. Vivek Rana