This is 2021, and we are surrounded by technological things. Keypad phone to android, old mechanical car to self-driven car takes place. This automated car can analyze traffic and take the decision without human involvement. Is this transformation a boon or a bane?
An autonomous car can be capable to sense traffic, environment and operates without human intervention.
Introduction of an autonomous car
An autonomous car is controlled by an Automatic Driving System. It works based on ITS-enabled wireless technology that enables cars to communicate with another vehicle with V2V (Vehicle to Vehicle) protocol and with the traffic signal via V2I (Vehicle to infrastructure).
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) defines their 6 levels of driving automation from the LEVEL 0 to LEVEL 5. Those are:
- LEVEL 0: No Automation – Means car is controlled by human using steering, acceleration, braking.
- LEVEL 1: Driver Assistance – It automates by single operating system like: it monitors speed through cruise control.
- LEVEL 2: Partial Automation – The vehicle can automate the steering and acceleration with the help of human.
- LEVEL 3: Conditional Automation – It detects the surroundings environment and operated as per the environment condition, but human can take over the control.
- LEVEL 4: High Automation – Vehicle can perform all the operation using the geolocation and sensors, but human can override its existing operation.
- LEVEL 5: Full Automation – The vehicle can perform all the tasks under all kind of circumstances without human intervention.
How does an autonomous car work?
Autonomous car is operated by different kinds of sensors, actuators, relays, machine learning systems, Artificial Intelligence, and powerful processor to execute the operation. Autonomous connected with maps via GPS sensors. When passenger set their destination, it follows the Maps and follow that road.
Autonomous car can navigate using their inbuilt camera which allows to visualize the road and determines the surrounding environment using machine learning algorithm. Also, it is connected through the traffic radar, so that it can measure the traffic easily.
Along with that, autonomous car commute with their internal communication through the software and control acceleration, braking, steering, obstacles avoidance, passer-by recognition.
Advantages of using an autonomous car.
When we think about driverless car, we wonder the quality of life. Autonomous car makes our lives easier. Car can drive you automatically from your office address to your home address. If you are felling ill, it will take to the nearest doctors. Along with these advantages there are few more important advantages are:
- Reduce the CO2 emission rate by 80% worldwide (as per iitp.org report)
- Reduce traffic congestions.
- Free up parking for other users.
- Reduce the transportation cost up to 40% (in terms of vehicles, fuel, and infrastructure)
- Reduce the road accidents.
Challenges faced by an autonomous car
Although autonomous car is completely operated without the human intervention, there are some challenges which any autonomous car faces the issue.
Weather environment:
Bad environment like snow fall, muddy road, makes a tough situation for driving an autonomous car. It needs human’s help.
Traffic condition and rules:
If an autonomous car occurs an accident, who will be the responsible for that car, owner, or a driver. The traffic rules for the autonomous car are not defined clearly.
Artificial vs human intelligence:
When we discuss about artificial intelligence and human intelligence, human intelligence wins respect to the emotions, taking decisions. On the other hand, artificial intelligence learns from the real time data so it will take more years to take the instant decisions.
Potential of technology and data privacy:
Autonomous cars are completely dependent upon the technology. All the time technology does not perform well. And the most common thing about is data privacy, Autonomous cars have the data of their owner along with their activity. So, there are a chance for data breaching and a huge question mark on that data security.
Some incidents occur through autonomous car.
In 2018, Elaine Herzberg, aged 49, was hit by the UBER self-driving car as she wheeled a bicycle across the road. During that accident, Rafael Vasquez who was the driver, had been streaming an episode of the television show “The voice at the time”. And, UBER was not faced any kind of criminal charges due to the “No basis for criminal liability’ for the corporation.
My opinion
Autonomous cars can help the humans for their accurate and comfortable driving experience. But there are few things we need to care about i.e. the trafficking policies, data privacy. And yes, true driverless cars should take the instructions from the driver in their native language and detect it.
After a few decades later, you might be seated on a passenger seat with Netflix and your car will be on 80KM/hr.
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