What you should know about autonomous driving

Autonomous driving is booming and many want to be the first to try it. It is no lie that in the future, automated vehicles could replace conventional cars. Do you want to know more about this topic? Then read this article. 방문운전연수

What is autonomous driving?

Before talking about autonomous driving, it is necessary to explain what an autonomous car is. Such cars are those that can work without human intervention. How do they achieve this? The autonomous car detects, with the help of high technology, its environment and drive without any danger.

As you can imagine, autonomous driving is a mode in which it is not necessary to maneuver the vehicle at any time. To achieve this, the car’s technology needs to be active, although it is usually active by default.

There are currently five levels to define whether a car is fully autonomous. Let us start with level zero that is when a car is manual and level five is when the vehicle is fully autonomous. 부천운전연수

How does autonomous driving work?

Autonomous driving works when the autonomous car has included a number of sensors, learning systems, various processors to run software and so on. 

With the help of complex algorithms, the car can create a map of its surroundings. In addition, sensors play a key role in avoiding potential collisions. 

The sensors in an autonomous car have various functions and are divided into groups; radar sensors, for example, monitor the position of nearby vehicles. Video cameras monitor traffic lights and road signs.  There are also LiDAR sensors that detect roads.

In additional, as the car is equipped with sophisticated software, a trajectory is created and sent to the vehicle owners. Finally, with the help of algorithms, the vehicle complies with traffic regulations and avoids violations.

What are the challenges that autonomous driving must overcome? Although they are not yet in full circulation, large companies are testing autonomous vehicles in different countries. No vehicle is yet available to the public. Even today, developers still have many environmental, technological and legislative challenges to solve.

The LiDAR and radar aspect 

Investing in vehicles with LiDAR technology is costly and represents a major challenge for many. One of the unknowns facing technicians is whether LiDAR technology will interfere when several autonomous cars drive together.

In addition to that, they are still looking for the balance between range and resolution to remain. It is difficult to know whether an autonomous car will have the capacity to incorporate sufficient frequency range to cope with mass production. High-tech is needed to not lose the connection.

How are weather conditions affected? 

For the autonomous car to start driving, developers have to anticipate weather conditions. How will it behave when there is snow on the road, lane dividers disappear or it rains a lot? These answers are still being worked out.

Traffic and laws 

The autonomous vehicle must know how to move in city traffic or through the busiest tunnels and roads. In addition, even if these types of cars circulate, it must be taken into account that many conventional vehicles will continue to exist for at least another 35 years.

In addition, there are still the traffic laws, in several countries this type of vehicles are not legal because they are considered risky. Hopefully, as the years go by and we see the advances that autonomous cars have, this point of view will change significantly.

Liability for accidents 

When an autonomous car has an accident, who will be liable? The manufacturer, or the human passenger or the other driver, are difficult unknowns. In level five vehicles the human passenger will not have the possibility to make decisions as the vehicle will not have a steering wheel or similar. Everything will be automatic.

Difference between an autonomous and an automated vehicle

These are two different and important terms. When we talk about an autonomous car, we mean one that is self-aware and has the ability to make its own decisions. The term automated is a car that will follow your orders and drive itself. Autonomous driving is a rapidly growing field in technology. It involves fully piloted vehicles that can drive themselves on open roads and highways. The ultimate aim of autonomousdriving is to eliminate the need for human drivers in all areas of operation. To date, there are many advances in the field that are paving the way for this futuristic vision.

One emerging discipline is the field of autonomy. This is a branch of AI (artificial intelligence) research. It is concerned with the design, implementation, operation and deployment of autonomous driving technologies in vehicles, trucks, autonomous passenger vehicles, and other autonomous driving resource vehicles. Its main goal is to build self-driving, semi-autonomous, or fully automated vehicles that can take over some or all of these roles. This includes tasks such as traffic management, diagnosing problems with systems like the brake lights or the traffic signals, controlling the steering, or even stopping the vehicle.

Self-driving vehicles are projected to completely replace the current human driving population by 2040.

Many car companies are already testing such autonomous driving technologies in production cars. In fact, Mercedes is actively researching on ways to let a car communicate with its driver in an efficient manner. This is a very exciting prospect, since it means that a driver can use the advanced technology and software available in an autonomous vehicle to assist him or her in a driving operation.

The progress made so far in autonomous driving has resulted to a lot of advances and improvements in the field. However, this is the present and the future will see the emergence of completely autonomous vehicles.

Self-driving vehicles will also work in congested city areas.

They can scan the surrounding area and decide on the best way to approach a given situation. If a car fails to judge the situation, it could collide with another vehicle. On the other hand, in most cases, a successful autonomous driving session does not require any input from the driver. It simply reacts to the situations as they come up.

However, there are still certain shortcomings in an autonomous vehicle. The biggest issue is related to weather conditions. Human intervention is still necessary in any case, because an autonomous driving system cannot judge traffic rules and safety parameters on its own. In this sense, autonomous vehicles can’t do the driving for themselves. They have to rely on their human “puppy” in order to react to different situations. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of autonomous driving.

autonomous driving

Finally, there is the issue of privacy.