Cartoon by Henri Payne
"Driverless cars have
long been the realm of fantasy" according to CNN reporter Oliver Joy. When
we talk about autonomous cars, driverless cars, self-driving cars, call it
however you want, we refer to vehicles able to control all the situations of
real life without any human intervention. Actually, autonomous cars isn’t
something new: the idea is almost as old as the first cars…
But how does such a car work?
In fact, it’s not as complicated as it seems. The system is based on the use of
different captors that transmit and receive all the data from the environment.
More precisely, a laser called "lidar" transmits the traffic
conditions and then advanced software translates this data into mechanical
actions. Many car manufacturers are getting involved in the race for
self-driving cars like General Motors, Nissan or Mercedes-Benz. In this race, other
sectors have their say, for example Google. With 1.5 million miles and counting,
it plays a major role. What differentiates Google self-drive cars from the
self-drive cars of car manufacturers is accuracy, according to The Guardian.
Statistics reveal that 90 % of
road accidents are due to human error. Driverless cars could reduce drastically
the number of accidents thanks to, inter alia, a better response time. Moreover,
it would allow the increase of the speed limit or even reduce traffic jams. Carlos
Ghosn, chief executive of Renault-Nissan, told CNN's reporter Max Foster that a
"car with artificial intelligence would be a huge advantage, allowing
people to use the time saved in commuting to be more productive". Nevertheless,
challenges remain. For example, hacking car computers could seriously
compromise traffic security…
Links:
Romain
THELLIER wants to work in automotive engineering.
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