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Autonomous Driving: Can we afford a Self-Driving Car?

We are moving closer to the once unimaginable self-driving car becoming a reality, the question that strikes our mind is “When can I buy one?” And if answer is “I can’t?” Have you started to wonder whether you’ll ever need to buy? Before such questions start creeping inside our mind let us know after all what is this Self Driving Car is? The principle behind their design etc. Go through the article as we will answer how we can enjoy the journey in Autonomous Self driving cars without actually buying them.

The technology of Self driving cars offers a fascinating glimpse into the near future and the cloud of words and phrases surrounding autonomous vehicles is interesting but the question is do we really need driverless cars and smart roads? Well if we look into the facts, Drivers run stop signs, cut off pedestrians, tailgate the car in front and race the car from behind. And to the worse they do all this in a fog of barely contained road rage. No wonder thousands of people are killed in traffic accidents every year in India alone. Hence it’s Clear, when it comes to Self Driving cars, the future can’t come soon enough

Inevitable Self Driving Car Future

Technology and Science fiction writers portray autonomous cars as inevitable, but will we really see them anytime soon? We already have the concept of self-parking cars from companies such as BMW, Lexus, and Toyota in which an onboard sensor detects a suitable parking spot and a built-in computer controls steering, accelerator, and brake to maneuver the car into the spot. But automatic parking is a long way from automatic autonomous driving, although it might not be as long as we think. We read about Google testing a fleet of its manufactured Self driving cars that can operate in auto-drive mode.

With nearly every major car company—including Ford, Audi, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Tesla, and Volkswagen etc. testing Self driving car prototypes, predicting that we won’t need to own cars when they’re all self-driving is not false. If we can summon an Autonomous self-driven taxi in minutes with a few taps on smartphone, who needs the hassle and expense of car ownership? We will discuss more on this in coming section.

Why self-driving cars matter?

What if it could be easier and safer for everyone to get around? Imagine if everyone could get around easily and safely, regardless of their ability to drive. The concept of self-driving cars gains momentum from the notion of self-dependency and love for independent life. With Self driven cars on road, aging or visually impaired loved ones wouldn't have to give up their independence. Also the time spent commuting could be time spent doing what you want to do. It’s notable that deaths from traffic accidents take millions of life worldwide every year. With proper and skilled driving it could be reduced dramatically as accidents involve human error.

How the Autonomous Self-driving Car works?

Safety is the priority and hence Self-driving cars are being designed to navigate safely through city streets. They are equipped with the Special sensors designed to detect objects in all directions, including pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles or even fluttering plastic shopping bags and rogue birds. Companies are focusing their research towards developing the software which processes all the information to help the car safely navigate the road without getting distracted. Algorithms with many complicated scenarios are designed and with them Self-driving cars are taught to navigate through on city streets. With the help of sensors and software, cars are able to sense objects like pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles and more and safely drive around in the streets and roads.

How Self Driving Cars drive?

If we consider about the human driving then the driver needs to know about the real facts about his surroundings. Like any driver, a self-driving car processes both map and sensor information to determine where it is in the world. Thus the car knows what street it's on and which lane it's in and its Sensors help to detect objects all around it and the software classifies objects based on their size, shape and movement pattern. Hence it can detect a cyclist and a pedestrian as well. The Self driving software predicts what all the objects around the car might do next. It has been programmed to predict that the cyclist will ride by and the pedestrian will cross the street. Then the software chooses a safe speed and trajectory for the car. The car nudges away from the cyclist and also slows down to yield to the pedestrian.

Making of self-driving car?

The self-driving car prototypes rely basically on their sensors and software setup to drive them. The Automobile Companies are working towards vehicles that take us where we want to go at the push of a button. For instance let us examine Google Self driving Car. As per Google, its self-driving car was designed by adding components to existing cars like Lexus SUVs, then began designing a new prototype from the ground up to better explore what should go into a fully self-driving vehicle. They removed the steering wheel and pedals, and instead designed a prototype that lets the software and sensors handle the driving. Below is the screenshot depicting various components of the Google Self-driving car.

Fig 1: Picture depicting the various components of self-driving car of Google Car Project

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Source: Google Self driving car Project link : https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/

Technology behind the Scene?

Although thought by some to be an acronym of Light Detection And Ranging, the term lidar was actually created as a portmanteau of "light" and "radar". LIDAR is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light. LIDAR can record laser pulses that strike the object and back to the sensor. LIDAR measures the distance from the sensor to the object by determining the time elapsed between the release of laser pulse to receiving of the reflected pulse. Then multiplying this time by the speed of the light and dividing by two will give the distance between the sensor and the target. These light pulses combined with other data recorded by the airborne system can generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape of the Earth and its surface characteristics. A LIDAR instrument principally consists of a laser, a scanner, and a specialized GPS receiver. For terrestrial uses LIDAR uses near infrared laser (900–1064 nanometers) and water penetration green light (532 nanometers) for the water measurement.

Mapping: Surface model created from LIDAR is used to add graphical value to maps. DEM (from LIDAR) is added underneath of all layers that shows the 3D view of the land. Especially LIDAR data (DEM) is added on the aerial photography to show the 3D view which makes easier to plan roads, buildings, bridges and rivers. LIDAR data for road helps engineer to understand it and give a roadmap for building it. As LIDAR are highly accurate technology it helps to understand width, elevation and length of the existing road.

Road engineer use LIDAR data for below things as well:
• Calculate Cut & fill, culvert sizing, vegetation removal, grade calculations and more
• Height clearances
• Right of way and surface conditions.

Thus LIDAR is becoming more popular in vehicles to make it automatic. In Self-driving cars LIDAR is used to grab the information on the road and then it is passed to computerized system to make a human being like decision. For instance, LIDAR can detect the yellow lines on the road which tells the vehicle to stay within yellow lines. Nowadays vehicle uses Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) which has LIDAR technology. It helps vehicle that is in cruise control to slow down when there is vehicle in the front and also speed up when there is no traffic.

Fig 2: Google’s Self Driving Car.

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The interesting thing about the LIDAR arrangement in ford Self-driven car is that the two outermost sets revolve obliquely, so as to get a view of the space immediately adjacent to the side of the car. This is contrary to just one roof-mounted set, as Google’s car does, the car casts a shadow, creating a blind zone. The other two sets on Ford’s vehicle are vertically oriented so that their fields overlap in front and in the back, providing extra detail. Ford Car has not used one sensor, the one which the car did not use was real-time GPS, which Ford deems too unreliable in built-up areas, where the satellite’s signal can reflect along a number of different pathways.

Fig 3 : Ford’s self-driving car.

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Autonomous taxis: Is there any Need to own a self-driving car?

Instead of seeming like fairy-tale, self-driving cars are now on the roadmap for not only nearly every car maker, but for ride-hailing giant taxi hire firms like Uber. For most of us the idea sounds pretty farfetched. After all, what about peak times like rush hour when everyone seems to want to go somewhere at the same time? Of course, that’s just our intuition, not science team’s vision for a Taxi is as a less-expensive, more-convenient service that combined all the good qualities of different car renting firms, without the hassle of having to drive yourself or of paying for a driver. Obviously the whole idea hinges on truly autonomous vehicles although it isn’t going to happen so quickly.

In IT industry, the companies’ advice for Carpooling and Car sharing among the employees. The biggest benefit of sharing cars would be cost savings. But as the rapid growth of Uber and Ola etc. shows, the convenience of on-demand transportation and thus the lower hassle of a “no-car” lifestyle is very appealing, especially to Middle class society. This will only accelerate the move to shared autonomous vehicle fleets once the technology becomes available. Cost savings, though, are still a major driver for their creation. Overall, it is estimated that a shared autonomous vehicle fleet could serve travelers’ needs with only half the number of cars on the road today. In addition to saving vehicle costs, parking needs and vehicle congestion would be greatly reduced.

Low-use bus routes are perfect candidates for replacement by a Taxi service. Replacing them would provide benefits in lower cost, less pollution, and improved safety. As “If a bus can’t get more than 10 people onboard then why bother running it? As it will be wasting diesel fuel.” Thus an increase in Car sharing and Carpooling and Taxi service and their use helps in reducing carbon emissions and reducing congestion during rush hour.

Not all are happy to use the Taxis service, No matter how attractive sharing autonomous vehicles may become financially, some drivers will simply want to own their own car — because they want immediate access, or they want to leave belongings in the car, or they want to customize it, or they just enjoy driving. For those folks, self-driving will just be another feature from the land of high-tech wizardry that will give them a chance to snooze on boring highway stretches, or get themselves home safely after over-indulging at a party. But for a large number of car owners — and especially potential car owners — the future may wind up consisting of shared access to a well-maintained fleet of self-driving cars.

Self-driving itself is only the beginning. The long-term vision has to be to combine smart cars with smart roads. That is, an advanced connected car will drive autonomously, and it will tap into the sensors and beacons that will festoon future roads and highways, leading to the ideal of crash-avoiding or crash less vehicles. This will also enable platooning, in which cars drive at a steady speed and follow each other at a set distance. The resulting car train or road train will be completely controlled by vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication and interaction with the so-called automated highway system (or intelligent transport system). The ultimate goal is an autonomous self-driven car that is so intelligent and so safe that we could fall asleep in it—the pie-in-the-sky, head-on-the-pillow sleeper car.

Author: Syed Shadab Ahmed

Engg Student RNSIT, Bangalore, India.

Syed Shadab Ahmed is a B.E in Electronics and Communication Graduate from Visvesvaraya Technological University Belgaum Karnataka, India.

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