It is no longer science fiction stuff. Driverless cars are close to reality and one can expect them to hit city streets within the next decade.
The driverless car concept embraces an emerging family of highly automated cognitive and control technologies, ultimately aimed at a full 'taxi like' experience for car users but without a human driver. The concept is not new. The history of such vehicles starts in 1977 with the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Lab in Japan, which built the first such vehicle. Since then various manufacturers around the world have been working to develop and perfect such vehicles. DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) organizes the Urban Challenge, a race in which autonomous vehicles navigate city streets, in an effort to encourage research and development in this area. This race is now an annual event.
General Motors has announced that its CEO, Rick Wagoner will be unveiling a prototype of a self driving SUV on Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show. The vehicle is nicknamed the 'Boss'. GM expects the technology to be ready for testing by 2015 and commercial production to begin by 2018.
The benefits of such vehicles are immense and they will go a long way in reducing accidents as well as traffic congestion.It is estimated that almost 95% of the over 40,000 traffic fatalities each year in the US are caused by human error.These are expected to decline dramatically with such cars. They would also go a long way in reducing congestion and traffic jams, as vehicles move along at remote controlled speeds, constantly tracked on giant radar screens. They may ultimately zip along on special tracks or along designated corridors.
Much of the technology for developing such a car, such as radar-based cruise control, various kinds of sensors and satellite based tracking already exists. Experts feel that it will be possible to apply this technology to cars.
The challenge will be to get people to trust the car and in getting legislators to allow them on public roads.The most important problem will be to tackle the legal issue of liability for accidents as no person will be in charge.
