Self-driving cars dream? reality or futuristic
Self-driving cars are going to change the face of transportation. Boston Consulting Group predicts this industry will grow to over $42 billion a year by 2025. Truth is, we are far from New Year’s Eve of 1897 when the first car was born as Carl Benz unveiled his petrol-powered automobile. Since then, motor vehicles have seen remarkable changes culminating in the new game-changing efforts to create self-driving versions.
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Attempts at developing self-driving cars started as far back as the early 1920s. However, the major breakthrough happened in the 1980s when truly autonomous cars came out of production lines. A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car a robotic car, a smart car or a driverless car, is a motor vehicle which has the capacity to sense its environment and navigates and avoids obstructions without the input of a human driver. In recent times, there are numerous companies working on producing self-driving cars, including traditional motor car companies such as Ford, Rolls-Royce, Toyota, Nissan, Volvo, etc., as well as a number of new players such as Google Uber and Tesla.
Proponents of self-driving cars believe they offer a solid solution to road safety since they claim these intelligent cars, having taken out the human element, responsible for 81 per cent of accidents, can cut the number of road deaths by half each year. Self-driving cars can also help with congestion on our roads, save on fuel usage and allow physically challenged persons to enjoy the full services of a car without relying on a human driver. Police time spent on motor traffic monitoring can now be utilised for other policing work.
How does it work?
The basic features which make a car autonomous include computers using complicated algorithms, odometry, GPS, sensors, cameras, radars and lasers which enable the car to move on its own and “see” its environment, including other motor vehicles, people, animals, etc. Another feature in this type of vehicle is its ability to rely on a store of prior types of road situations which provide valuable guidance as to how to react when faced with same or similar situations. For example, it is able to store information about the location of traffic lights, so that it can slow down while approaching one while also understanding that red means stop, green means go and yellow means get ready. Essentially, the “brain “of a self-driving car takes in raw data (driving conditions and other environmental factors) from the car’s sensors and then matches it with known models (store of knowledge), leading it to take action relevant to a particular movement such as turning the car’s steering or applying brakes.
The level of computerisation defines a true self-driving car. According to the Society of Automotive Engineers, Level 5 cars can handle all driving tasks and situations on road in a manner that a human driver can accomplish, while Level 4 refers to cars that can only handle some tasks or driving situations but not all.
How much does it cost?
Fully autonomous cars do not yet exist in showrooms. However, you can add self-driving technology to existing cars to make them partial autonomous cars. Depending on what features you are adding, you will need to invest between 10,000 to over 100,000 USD.
Regulatory environment
This is a good example of innovation overtaking regulations. For some time now, producers of self-driving cars have been operating without clear-cut rules to guide their operations. Currently, there are only few countries in the world which have some kind of regulations for self-driving cars, such as the United State of America (USA).
We have a long way to go, in terms of determining regulations, laws and policies to guide operations of self-driving cars, since it is a mine field pregnant with a lot of challenges such as how we can ensure that such vehicles make right ethical judgments. Will they use the same roads as human-operated cars? How do you punish offending vehicles? etc. However, it is imperative for self-driving safety rules and regulations to be developed in order to sustain progress in this area.
Dangers and challenges
Self-driving cars are not without challenges and dangers. Firstly, there are no guarantees that self-driving cars will reduce or prevent accidents from happening. During an Uber self-driving pilot trial in Pittsburgh, USA, the car went down a one-way street in the wrong direction. Also in February 2016, Google recorded the first ever self-driving car accident when its driverless car ran into a bus.
Another challenge for self-driving cars is interpretation. For instance, a fatal accident can occur if the car’s “central brain” mistakes the location of a pedestrian, thinking the person is further away than they are.
Further, self-driving cars rely heavily on computer systems and there is the risk of a hacker taking control of such cars and using it for nefarious activities, including terrorist attacks or stealing personal information, etc.
Conclusion
Although we are not going to have truly self-driving cars on our roads any time soon, they are now definitely more than just a concept due in part to the increasing capabilities of today’s computers, as well as competition among manufacturers. Today, self-driving vehicles can be found in specialised applications such as the controlled environment of mines, farms, airports, warehouses and factories. On some farms, agriculture machinery such as combine harvesters have self-driving features.
Traditional car manufacturers such as Ford and BMW are predicting commercial production by 2020. Ghana must consider investing in understanding this technology, especially its risks, challenges and opportunities, in order to ensure it can latch on to this exciting innovation.
Writer’s E-mail: kwami@penplusbytes.org