Examines recent development in autonomous car through an exploratory technique in which secondary sources are sought to give informed opinion concerning the autonomous vehicle.
The driverless vehicles in getting into the heart of the society and is attracting the attention of many players. However, there is concern over its practicability and viability to solve the many societal problems such as easing traffic congestion in big cities. Currently, there is heated competition by country on who will emerge the first to deliver the driverless vehicle. It has become a challenge to the point that international organizations like Google, Yandex, Toyota, Apple etc. are now venturing into this heated competition striving to be among the first to deliver an autonomous car with the aim of eying on the prospects. In this paper, the examination starts by looking at recent development in an autonomous vehicle in different countries, companies working for its realization and types of driverless cars, reasons for companies choosing commercial ground, pros and cons, the future of autonomous vehicle and end by giving a conclusion.
China being a technological hub globally has endeavored to develop a driverless car. The Baidu has developed and released a driverless prototype car which drove through Beijing for 18.6 miles. Through this advancement, the country is optimistic that it will get autonomous vehicle operate in commercial locations by 2019 and predict a widespread mass production by 2021 [8].
In Japan, the venture of a driverless car is underway. Toyota and Nissan have been undertaking the project of development of autonomous car since 2013. The Japanese government stated that on the realization of a driverless vehicle, the senior citizen will be the first to use and followed by people with limited transport in the society and hope that by 2020 driverless vehicles will be released for public transport [17].
In Australia, development of driverless vehicle is in progress. The Aussie transportation has illustrated the development of driverless trucks, cars, and driverless bus trail. The bust trail testing is taken in Perth and the bus – ‘RAC Intellibus’ carries 11 passengers going at 25 kph receiving positive responses, with a larger number of participants accepting of it being a good service [6].
In Europe, Yandex in Russia together with Daimler, Kamaz and NAMI are using an App technology in their driverless minibus testing where the App connects with Yandex’s cloud to get information on the route to follow.
In America, there are several players who are on the road testing their driverless technology. Waymo uses Chandler in Arizona for testing their driverless technology car. Ford, as well as General Motors, use App in their ‘Cruise Automation’ car to the driver from home to the office. Furthermore, Uber is testing its driving cars in Phoenix, ‘Nutonomy’ test their driverless cars in a park in the south of Boston and ‘Navya’a French Company test their driverless buses in Las Vegas [10].
Besides the competition among countries, there is also stiff competition among organization on the race to delivering the driverless vehicle. According to [24] irrespective of the company’s fame and name, the run for a driverless vehicle is begged on reality to great strides in developing and deploying driverless vehicles. As a result of high technologies in place, organizations are focusing on particular features of deployment with no human involvement in monitoring the car to cover the trip and since it entails a different range of technologies, companies have different strengths in different technologies. In this point, some companies work on one-stop shop whereas others work with third-party partners to create the autonomous car [12].
General Motors – GM
The company design Cruise AV as their first driverless car that does not include steering wheel. The approach taken is a one-stop shop where they design, create software and build. They are optimistic about delivering a fleet of driverless cars by 2019. They have given a timeline to their efforts. The company is looking at developing driverless taxis in big cities. In this respect, they have sought permission from the US Department of transport (USDOT) through a petition to start commercial autonomous car operation in 2019. Through this venture, the company has the expectation of getting a profit margin of between 20 – 30 percent [33].
Waymo
Irrespective of GM’s optimistic nature, Waymo is thought to have taken a lead by the time GM is operationalizing their driverless car in 2019. This reason is that Google is strong in terms of technology. Waymo began earlier working their driverless car and by 2012, they have completed level three of this project. They completed the development of sensors and computer systems by 2013 and in November the company tested their vehicles on public roads completing 4 million miles as well as testing their minivans in Arizona without human intervention. The company became the first to report on the issues of public safety to the federal government illustrating the features of their technology. When other companies are in research and development, Google is in their car works in all situations [7].
Daimler-Bosch
The partnership of Mercedes-Benz and Bosch have created the ‘Robo-taxis’ their endeavor for the creation of the driverless car came together in order to combine their expertise and resources. Currently, they are planning to test their robot-taxis’ on public roads. The company is very positive about bringing in level 4 and level five vehicles by 2020. The conceptualization of the ‘robot-taxis’ bring in the idea of building the car from the beginning as opposed to making it like a technology kit [30].
Ford
The organization in the struggle to realize the driverless car, partners with organizations from different industries with other organizations in order to realize its dream of developing a driverless vehicle by 2021. The company is focusing on commercial vehicles for commercial services as opposed to the consumer. The organization is currently testing its vehicles in Miami taking considerable time with the aim of strengthening on the technology while at the same time developing on the broader model of scaling up the services once it is realizable [37]. They partnered with Postmates to deliver a package with the use of the driverless vehicle in Florida City while testing their cars. Alongside the development of the driverless vehicle, the organization is working on its business model to get the best way of doing business and keeping maintaining driverless vehicles. Moreover, the organization is developing an ‘operations terminal’ where to maintain and secure its vehicles. The set aside place incorporate offices for washing vehicles, including their essential sensors, and for maintenance. Prior to self-driving vehicles hitting the road, the organization will have arranged to oversee expansive, driver-less fleet effectively, and the steps taken at Miami indicate a big milestone in the process [7]. The company does not follow other companies who develop their products for the sake of selling to companies like Uber and Waymo but develop and uses it for business and is similar to the strategies for companies like General Renault-Nissan and Motors [25].
Volkswagen Group
Volkswagen Group and Aurora reported a key organization that unites the two to convey driver-less cars to urban areas. The point is to incorporate Aurora’s self-driving sensors, equipment, and programming into Volkswagen’s vehicles. Volkswagen had accomplished more on-street testing than any organization beyond what Google has done. Volkswagen is adopting a conservative strategy on the utilization of the innovation [31].
Self-driving innovation will be the highlight of future individual transport. The coordinated effort with Aurora will give the profitable practice in the designing group the advancement of programming and hardware for realization of driver-less vehicles, and, moreover, mobile services for urban areas and it is the reason why the Volkswagen Group is increasing the pace. As driver-less system achieves the required development and levels in the main urban areas; integration is possible over the brand’s categories, for various product classes like SEDRIC, transports or vehicles to self-driving lorries [25]
Later on, individuals can obviously utilize the versatility application or computerized virtual associate to driver a self-driving electrical car to drive them door-to-door or utilize the Volkswagen One Button that has GPS, network as well as a compass, as a small fob with most extreme accommodation fitted for ease of operaation [37].
BMW collaborated with Intel and Mobileye in 2016 with the objective of putting up driver-less vehicles for sale to the public by 2021. The three organizations are developing and working on the BMW iNEXT model, which is going to serve as the establishment strategy and set a basis for fleets of completely self-governing autos for riding. They intend to have Level 3 autos for clients in 2021, and Level 4 as well as 5 ride-hail autos for urban test programs in that year [1].
Aptiv
Aptiv bought nuTonomy, the main designer of self-governing driving programming. NuTonomy’s innovation is second just to Google’s, giving Aptiv a high positioning as far as mechanical ability. nuTonomy has been running an expansive trial of driverless cabs in Singapore since 2016. Aptiv combined with Lyft at CES 2018 to offer Level 4 self-governing rides down the Las Vegas strip to participants. The organization trusts its framework and this has to be scaled for production.
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance
This partnership together is working on a driver-less and auto-sharing services, to be dispatch in the next 10 years. It will start testing a self-driving taxi benefit in Japan this year-2018. The world organizations together contributed as $1 billion to finance mobility new companies throughout the five years as it hopes to make advances with new innovation during the era of fast change for the transportation part. Worldwide automakers are trying to combine their assembling ability with the agility of new companies that are taking on electrification, autonomous and artificial intelligence — advancements that are changing the business (Bloomberg, (2018).
Volvo-Autoliv-Ericsson-Zenuity
The collaborators are building end to end self-governing stage that coordinates vehicle programming and frameworks with associated security information from different vehicles and foundation. They additionally as of late propelled an advancement lab for simpler cooperation with new companies. In a multifaceted and computerized division, where mechanization and associated vehicles include the future, new prerequisites are being set as far as work approaches.
The organizations need to fortify their situations at the point of a changing car industry and aiming to work together with new businesses to create and create more secure and more proficient transportation for tomorrow’s reality [22].
The venture permits common advancement of new innovation and cooperation with small new businesses, whose thoughts and motivation require drawing from. Moreover, the organization’s aim is to invigorate the improvement over the Swedish car group with the goal of expanding and intensifying competitiveness for tomorrow’s transportation.
In a period when the vehicle business is experiencing fast change — common trade between specific organizations can make more powerful solutions and more quickly [26].
PSA
In France, the Groupe PSA is collaborating with AImotive to combine efforts to realize a driverless car. The collaboration has been able to pull efforts using the experience and expertise from Citroën broad produced Citroën C4 Picasso which uses AI-based Algorithms [32] .The Company is optimistic to realize Level 4 series by 2025 and completely driverless in Level 5 car by 2030. The reason is that the company is currently testing the Peugeot 3008 GT Autocar fitted with cameras, four radar sensors for short and three radar sensors for long ranges. The vehicles are able to cope on a busy road filled with traffic [9].
The driverless car journey began in 1925 when the radio-controlled car invented by Francis Houdina operated with no human intervention. The artificial intelligence concept was born in 1969 by John McCarthy and the “automatic chauffeur,” was developed with the capabilities of employing television cameras to navigate the road following instructions inputted via the keyboard [35]. The use of command prompt permitted users to change destinations, speed, and stop. The radio controlled car employed integrated circuits and motors that received the radio signal on the path to follow. This was a breakthrough for that time and many researchers were optimistic that this will be the future of cars but this was not to happen owing to a shift in technology [23].
In the 1980’s, there emerged another era, Mercedes created a trailed robotic van on the road reaching a speed of 39mph. EUREKA in between 1987 to 1995 created Prometheus Project. In America, the ALV (Autonomous Land Vehicle) was developed which was using computer vision and autonomous robotic control and achieved 19 mph.
Another transformation shift came in 1987 with the emergence of neural systems employed to steer as well as driver-less vehicles. This became the foundation of today control plans in vehicles [25].
In 1990 scientists developed vehicles using technologies that allowed further movement, faster and more autonomous. The Navlab project completed 3,100 miles on their project and semi-autonomous since and brakes were controlled for safety purposes by a person.
This concept was further extended by Dean Pomerleau, a Carnegie Mellon researcher enumerates the use of neural networks to permit driverless vehicles to get raw data and input them as controls for steering, and this was later realized through the use of Navlab self-driving car system in 1995. The driverless minivan developed drove 2,797 miles across Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to San Diego with no human intervention [29].
In 1996, the ARGO Project employed a changed Lancia Thema in following normal lane patterns. It voyaged 1,200 miles at 56+ mph. The vehicle contains two black-and-white low-cost cameras coupled with stereoscopic vision algorithms for learning the environment.
The 2008 era with advancements in technology saw great advancement and the idea of self-parking vehicles was born. Since 2000, there has been the realization of self-parking, self-switching system and parking assistant installed in present vehicles and soon the realization of driverless car will be bone. Japanese Prius hybrid, Lexus LS sedan, Ford and BMW vehicles have parking assistant incorporated.
Mercedes S-Class in 2014 realized the semi-autonomous car with the capabilities of self-steering, capability to remain in the driving lanes and can avoid accidence.
Google began the journey of the driverless car in 2009 under the Waymo project and by 2014 the company had driven their driverless car under testing for over 300,000 miles. They reveal that they now have a driverless car that is fully autonomous with not steering, brake pedals, gas pedals and they had tested it on 2 million miles [34].
Tesla in 2015, created Model S that combined sleek looks and driverless system. The vehicle only requires one to be on the wheel o react to any issues that cannot be handled and is 92% driverless, for example, it’s unable to stop at traffic lights. The company is very optimistic about realizing the full driverless car by 2021.
Organizations that are currently venturing and putting efforts and money on the driverless vehicle are because of the looming fortune ahead if things go well. It is no wonder why many countries are striving to be on the top priority in getting the autonomous vehicle on the road for commercial purposes. As per Intel’s research and on the “passenger economy” as they call will be worth approximately $7 trillion a year. It is the reason why companies are now turning their strategies and efforts to the development of the autonomous vehicles so that they will be part of the competitors to capture the market [19].
In this way, the pioneers of self-driving hardware and software can construct their plans of action in light of practical stage methodologies surrounding a general self-driving hard-and programming model supplemented with related administrations and business connections [36]. Given the financial esteem that can be acknowledged in numerous business sectors and business situations with self-driving vehicle innovation, the plan of action will at first be extremely productive. As in numerous different markets, the pioneers have the capability of building up a main and ideally enduring business sector position. However, the competitive advantage will come down after some time as the market moves toward becoming commoditized and it will be difficult to keep contenders out – not at all like the present models in different markets which appreciate extensive system impacts [21].
Advantages of Driver-less Vehicles
There is going to be minimal accidents caused if the dream of a driverless car is realized. This is because the use of technology coordinated systems proved accurate. Drunkard drivers will be a forgettable thing. The only barrier is the integration of the technological features into the working of the vehicle [18].
The other aspect that is going to be obtained with the realization of a self-driving car is that there is going to be an increase of leisure activity onboard. The mini-leisure rooms are visible through the space that will be created and no need for the passengers to face forward (Memon, 2018). The passengers are able to enjoy entertainment through available technology and as such long journey can be lightened with no need of a disturbing driver. Along with this line, passengers are able to enjoy their sleep for the duration of the journey [11].
The traffic jam experienced in big cities will be solved. The system of driverless car will open up ways of creating traffic coordinated system control. The driverless vehicle will be able to assess the roads with no traffic and find an alternate route without traffic jam [5]. In this respect, the commuting time is going to be reduced drastically. Moreover, as a result of high accuracy attained, speed limits could be increased so that it relates to safer driving and thereby reducing the length of the journey [3].
The fatigue realized while driving will be non-existent since everything is under control through technology. Moreover, the vehicle with the use of sensory technology will be able to perceive the environment better as compared to human senses thus eliminating the issues of poor visibility, detecting subtle and smaller obstacles and reason to reduce traffic accidents. Additionally, the parking stress and maneuvering will be eliminated since the vehicle will drop the passengers and look for a parking [11].
The need for special people will now be solved completely since this category of people will get the joy of sitting and taken to the destination of choice [3].
The driverless vehicles will bring about a reduction in costs like for instance fuel costs, and insurance premium costs thus saving the owner extra expenses and thus ensures efficient travel. In addition, theft of vehicle will be reduced because these vehicles get locked by a key and the key will need encryption for it to open. The encrypted algorithm cannot get realized by the thieves [11].
Disadvantages of Driver-less Vehicles
Irrespective of the many advantages and gains on the advent of a driverless vehicle, there are as well disadvantages. First, the cost of getting these driverless vehicles will be too prohibitive as compared to ordinary vehicles and ordinary people will not afford. This is going to be a product for the only specific class of people in the society [11].
The people who depend driving of truck and taxis for their daily living are prone to lose their jobs. The end effect is that many families will be affected owing to unemployment. Currently, driving creates numerous jobs for many people in different parts of the world. The net consequences are that these huge numbers of people will pose other problems like increase in crime rates, illegal drug trafficking, and some will engage in bad habits like drug abuse as a way of getting solace [20].
Despite the accuracy expected, in a case where there is a minor hitch or mistake on the vehicle, the consequences will be far much worse than as compared to the error caused by a human driver. In addition, there is going to create issues on people to take responsibility as well as accountability in a case where there is a problem. This will create a crisis since a problem can be a hardware or software related and the driverless vehicle cannot make ethical decisions while on the road [17].
Furthermore, the privacy of information will be an issue. Since these driverless vehicles, information of people, property, and geographical locations will be required. This renders private information public and is against the privacy and regulation laws [3].
The security is another disadvantage that driverless vehicles will create. Since it is reliant on software on most of its control operations, hacking will be a problem. Hackers maneuvering into the vehicle’s software get the chance to manipulate the controls as well as the operations of the vehicle thus paving way for other threats to the people and the society. The terrorists can take advantage of driverless vehicles and use as a means of moving dangerous weapons [11].
Currently, the present models of driverless vehicles cannot operate on adverse weather conditions, for instance, roof-mounted laser sensors do not work on heavy rains and snow interfere with cameras. If this is not solved, there is going to create issues on these vehicles when operating at different weather conditions [3].
The road system networks, as well as street lights already in place, may not be suitable for driverless vehicles. This calls for upgrading of all infrastructure networks. The upgrade requires a colossal amount of money from the governments. This is another burden that will roll back to the taxpayer [11].
The Radar Reflections
The principles employed by driver-less cars are the application of radar sensor system for navigations. The radar works by detecting radio wave reflections from nearby objects. While on the road, the car keeps on transmitting radio frequency that gets reflection the cars and objects nearby and the reflection time take get measured and used to calculate the distance between nearby objects and the car so that needed action get taken [12]. The principle may be the subject of interferences from other cars when the number of such vehicles on the road is many. Therefore, radio waves from other cares may cause interferences in the same location. Even though this principle is perfect on airplanes, the number of airplanes in the sky is limited within any given period of time and distance between airplanes is large [27]. The challenge is the ability of a vehicle to differentiate its own reflected signal and those signals from other vehicles. Irrespective of the fact there might be multiple frequencies for radar, their range of frequencies will be limited given the number of vehicles manufactured. Additionally, the even with the use of global positioning system to detect distances between vehicles, the appearances of other objects like mountains and tree could give a false signal of a nearby vehicle [38].
Accident Liability
There are the issues of liability in a situation where an accident occurs. Since the driver-less car has the control all left to the software and little provision is left for the driver, the responsibility of bearing the liability raises questions on who to take the blame [4]. When a Toyota Prius was involved in an accident, it was an autonomous care but with some provisions for the driver to take control when control does not work for the software system. In this instance, the brake pedal failed and instead of stopping the car, it was accelerating. In this case, the software company was the cause because the software failed and locked off the manual system completely [16].
On account of driver-less autos, the software will be the principle section that will drive the auto as well as settling available options. Whereas in the normal circumstance a driver is on the steering wheel, the current design such as the one for Google does not have the steering wheel and brake pedal [28]. In such designs, when there is no mechanisms for driver to control such as a directing wheel, a brake pedal, emergency pedal, then how is the individual in the auto expected to control the auto in the event of an emergency? Furthermore, in the idea of self-ruling autos, the passengers will be relaxing and may not have any concern on the movement conditions of the car. In circumstances where they are required, and have to take care of the car, it might be too late to deflect the circumstance and save the situation [14].
On account of a mishap, nobody is held obligated for harms. In addition, the self-driven auto does not have control of the drive and therefore not accountable for the accident. The question that remains to be answered is whether to take the manufacture liable or owner of the car [31].
Crowd Navigation
Additionally, the challenge that still remains is on the interaction of the care and the passengers crossing or any animal crossing the road. The person who crosses the road creates a challenge to the driverless cars since there is still a lot to be done so that this car detects passengers crossing the road on red lights. Alongside this, how will the driver-less car act on abrupt animals that might abruptly cross? This calls for an interface as well as an intelligent system to detect human and animals on the road
The Future Of Autonomous Vehicle
For any individual who looks at the innovation and its potential, there can be little uncertainty that numerous players will, in the long run, understand self-driving auto innovation. There are numerous business players who have the motivation and adequate assets to tackle the issue [34].
After some time, all the necessary tools, as well as hardware and software, will turn out to be more refined and more accessible. Therefore it is improbable that a supplier of self-driving auto innovation will have the capacity to build up advantage over the competition based on innovation [33].
Despite what might be expected, the time is here when innovation will be known by numerous people and that it will be commoditized. That is the time when self-driving auto innovation is taken as a necessity component of the vehicle, where autos will not be separated based on self-driving auto innovation and where clients do not mind particularly on the type of self-driving auto innovation [15].
Conclusion
The development of driverless vehicles is getting more and more attention from countries all over the globe. The pace at which it is accelerating is alarming with every country striving to be among the first in the commercialization of this novel product. Companies, on the other hand, are taking the same step with the aim of pioneering into the lucrative looming market. As a result of its multifaceted as well as challenging nature, a number of organizations are collaborating with the aim of bringing out the best in order to realize the far-fetched dream. A number of companies are on the road testing the novel autonomous car. On realization, many benefits will be felt across the globe despite having some drawbacks.
It is apparent that the far-fetched dream is near; however, there is the paradox situation that is blurring the dream from its full realization. The radar reflection, the liability issue, the crowd navigation among the many challenges the realization of the dream. However, the future of autonomous vehicle is promising if only the paradox situation is solved. The efforts that are exerted through collaboration and research will soon bore fruits and transform lives in the society.
References
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