Autonomous vehicles are one of the most revolutionary inventions in the history of technological advancements in our time. In this blog post, we will discuss how self-driving cars safely navigate their way on the road.
What is an Autonomous Vehicle?
An autonomous vehicle, famously known as a self-driving car or driverless car, is an automobile that uses radars, sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence or AI to journey to a destination without a human operator. A self-driving car must be able to operate without a human driving the vehicle to a predetermined destination over routes that have not been acclimated for its use.
Companies that are developing self-driving cars are Tesla, Google, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Volvo, and General Motors.
How Do Self-Driving Cars Work?
To function safely, self-driving cars must be able to assess the surrounding entities such as other vehicles, pedestrians, roads, stoplights, and everything that human drivers would consider when driving as they decide when to accelerate and brake. However, you might think, how does technology imitate human driving skills? Primarily, AI technology powers self-driving cars. It uses a combination of three sensor and image technologies: radar, cameras, and lidar.
Automotive developers of self-driving cars use extensive data from machine learning, neural networks, and image recognition systems to build systems that make it possible to drive autonomously.
How Does Artificial Intelligence Technology Navigate Autonomous Vehicles?
The neural networks identify and recognize patterns in the data, which provides information to the machine learning algorithms. The transferred data, such as images from cameras on self-driving cars, learns to distinguish pedestrians, traffic lights, street signs, roads, and other elements in a driving environment.
What are the 5 Levels of Autonomy in Autonomous Vehicles?
- Level 1: Driver Assistance is an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) that helps the human driver in steering, braking, or accelerating, but not simultaneously. ADAS includes rearview cameras and a vibrating seat warning feature that alerts drivers when they drift out of the traveling lane.
- Level 2: Partial Automation, to which an ADAS steers and either brake or accelerates simultaneously while the person remains fully aware behind the wheel and continues to serve as the driver.
- Level 3: Conditional Automation is an automated driving system (ADS) that can perform all driving tasks under certain circumstances, including car parking. The human driver must still be ready to retake wheel control in these circumstances. However, the human is still required to be the vehicle’s primary driver.
- Level 4: High Automation is an ADS that can operate all driving tasks and detect the driving environment in certain circumstances. In those circumstances, the ADS is reliable enough that the human driver need not pay attention.
- Level 5: Full Automation is the vehicle’s ADS acts as a virtual chauffeur and does all the driving in all circumstances. The human occupants are passengers and are never expected to drive the car.
Are Self-Driving Cars Safe?
As one of the benefits of technological advancement, self-driving cars are safer than human-operated vehicles. For example, in the US, it is estimated that 39,000 lives are lost in fatal vehicle accidents yearly, often due to human error, fatigue, and drunk driving.
Self-driving cars operate without these dangerous behaviors, potentially saving thousands of lives.
How Do Self-Driving Cars Promote Safety?
Self-driving cars have advanced safety features such as:
Automated Emergency Braking
Most developed self-driving cars have an automated emergency braking system. It is designed to detect when the vehicle is approaching a threat to its safety, such as a sudden stop from a pedestrian or traffic. When this happens, the technology automatically applies the vehicle’s brake system to a safe stop.
Automated emergency brake systems can be configured to spot and respond to other vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists on the road. It is a safety self-driving feature designed to lessen the risk of accidents or collisions when driving in busy urban areas.
Night Vision Capability
Autonomous vehicles have night vision cameras to recognize obstacles in the road, specifically in low-light conditions. This safety feature helps passengers to stay safe during night driving. It avoids obstacles that may be difficult to detect during nighttime.
Automated Parking
Besides automated accelerating and braking, autonomous vehicles have automated parking capabilities. This safety feature allows them to navigate tight spaces and parallel parks easily. It uses sensors to map out the car’s location and spot any obstacles it may crash in its path. Once the vehicle is in the right parking spot, it automatically adjusts its pace and steering to ensure it parks safely and accurately.
Lane-Keeping Assist
Lane-keeping assist is a safety feature in some self-driving cars that keeps the automobile within its lane. It uses sensors to determine when the vehicle shifts from its route and automatically adjusts the steering to the correct course.
Is it Difficult to Find Automotive Maintenance for Self-Driving Cars?
There are a lot of automotive repair and maintenance facilities or companies that provide services for self-driving cars, such as Mileage Services.
