How Far is the Future of Self Driving Cars? - Autonomous Vehicles | VastlyCurious

    Imagine a car you just type in your destination and it will take to the entered destination. You won't be needing a driver anymore or yourself to intervene in the steering of the car. It's going to be cool, you wouldn't even need a Driving license anymore. You can do any other activity while commuting to your work. How close are we to self-driving Cars?

    Self-driving cars could change everything in our transit system. Long drives would only be limited by the Size of the battery or the tank and traveling would become luxurious. The arrival of Self-driving cars could mean lesser accidents as there will be no human error. Transporting commodities to long distances could be taken over by self-driving trucks, reducing the stress on Truck drivers. It could also mean new jobs to control and monitor the systems.

How Self Driving car works?

    Self Driving cars relies on Radar and Lidar to map the surroundings of the car and the other vehicles around it. It emits ultrasonic waves and feeds the information into the Systems where the combination of Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms are used to find whether the obstacle is a tree or a person. 

Object detection using Ultrasonic Waves

    The revolution of 5G technology could possibly make Self Driving cars a safer option. As the number of self-driving cars increases, the cars could communicate between themselves, and the Artificial Intelligence of each car monitors the path of each vehicle on the road. Therefore the movement of cars becomes more predictable, and many accidents could be avoided.

Classification of Self-driving Cars

   There is an International Standard for measuring the autonomous nature of a car (J3016), which rates the autonomous cars on a scale of 0-5. Each value represents the Independent nature of a car without human intervention.

• Level 0: Level 0 vehicles have no control over the car and are fully operated by Humans and it doesn't have electronics connected to the cars. It actually represents the old-fashioned cars. It has no autonomous feature.

• Level 1: Level 1 cars are the start of self-driving cars, but they are not fully autonomous. It mostly requires human intervention, but either the speed or the steering can be controlled by the car but not both at the same time. Parking assists and different modes like cruise mode can be present in this car. Safety features like Auto braking systems ensure the safety of the passengers.

• Level 2: This is where the computer starts to take over, but still human intervention is needed to operate. Here the speed and steering both are delegated to the systems. But no sleeping and driving yet! Because it might need humans to steer on dangerous roads. This level of cars is now available in the market. Tesla Autopilot has become very popular these days. These cars have already proved to stop the accidents as it predicts the movement of other vehicles early. 

• Level 3: These vehicles are truly autonomous, you can insert the destination to you want to go and it will take you to the destination regardless of the weather. These levels of vehicles are referred to as Eyes-off vehicles as Driver intervention is not always needed. These vehicles are still in the development stages and are yet to be released commercially. But Audi's A8 is already procured with this technology, but it was not released because of the debate over whether the vehicle can be operated without the consciousness of the driver.

• Level 4:This is where the game changes for self-driving cars, it does not even require staying awake during the travel. Even when human intervention is needed, it checks on the camera to verify whether the driver is active. If the driver is not active, it automatically slows down the car. Google has been the pioneer of this level of cars with its Waymo car on the roads in the US.    

• Level 5: Level 5 is the ultimate level of Autonomous vehicles as it doesn't need any human driver at all. It could go on regardless of the weather, traffic, and mountain ranges. It also makes use of the 5G technology to connect with other autonomous cars and track the other car's movement. This level is definitely for the future of transportation. Audi's Aicon concept car is based on this level and it could be used as a robotic taxi. No more small talk with the driver! 

 

Can Self-Driving cars be hacked?

    In 2019, one of the latest level 2 self-driving cars was hacked by a group of white hat hackers and the vulnerability of Autonomous vehicles was found. Safety was the main priority on Autonomous vehicles, but that seems to be the problem now. Is there a way to handle this?

    Switching the focus towards security might be the only solution to this problem and every company should make it a priority. Understanding the technology behind the autonomous vehicle might also be a key to improving security and avoiding hacks. 

When Self-Driving Cars will be available?

    So let's go back to the question. When is the future of self-driving cars? The level 2 self-driving cars are already on the move now in only some parts of the world. The full expansion of these vehicles might take a long time, it depends on factors like safety, security, and weather prediction.

 Training and using a self-driving car in a difficult environment and sicker climate might not happen any time soon. Developers and Engineers are working hard to implement these cars because this might the big thing in our future.

Conclusion

    Self-driving cars are definitely going to be the future of transport! Artificial Intelligence and other major car technologies are improving drastically in this decade. The exact timeline of when it would be available in the market is the only question that has to be answered. Advances in Self-driving car technology are on the way!