The future of cars: Drivers not needed
Baku, January 10 (AZERTAC). It`s conventional wisdom in the auto industry, but the rest of us may be a bit shocked to find out that cars of the future likely will drive themselves.
In some ways, they already are.
A $100,000 car from Mercedes aims to give the human foot a rest in traffic jams. It senses how far away other cars are -- and then speeds up and slows down accordingly. No need to turn off cruise control and hit the brake. You just steer. (Wired Magazine, which tested the car, called this a "magically scary experience.")
And tech companies are pushing car automation even further.
In October, Google announced it had developed a fleet of cars that use various sensors and maps to feel out the roadway. "They`ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research," the company said on its blog.
The latest edition in this trend comes from General Motors, which showed off a self-driving car last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The EN-V (pronounced "envy" and short for "Electric Networked Vehicle") combines two ideas about how to teach cars to drive -- using sensors like cameras and sonar to keep the car from hitting pedestrians; and network technology that lets cars talk to each other.
This "car internet" lets the cars link up wirelessly and follow one another in a sort of wirelessly linked train. If one EN-V needed to pull out of the line, it could.
The pod-like cars, which are just prototypes for now (GM says they could be on the market by 2030 at a cost of $10,000), look somewhat like large scuba-diver helmets, or smashed dust busters. They roll on two wheels, which are aligned like the front two wheels of a car, not like a bicycle. GM partnered with Segway, maker of those futuristic-looking transporters, to create technology that allows the car to balance.
"It is basically a dynamically balanced skateboard," said Chris Borroni-Bird, GM`s director of advanced technology vehicle concepts.
The EN-V runs on battery power and plugs into a wall -- giving it a max speed of about 30 miles per hour and a range of about 30 miles. That`s not far or fast, but it`s enough to make the EN-V useful for cutting down congestion in urban settings, particularly high-density cities in China and India, Borroni-Bird said.
The car also aims to improve safety, since human drivers don`t have a sterling record on that front. An estimated 1.3 million people die in traffic-related accidents each year, according to the World Health Organization.
The EN-Vs are just as wide as they are tall, measuring 5 feet cubed. Two people fit inside comfortably, but there`s not much room for anything else. A bubble of glass sits close in front of the driver`s face. "You can probably pack 5 or 6 times as many of these EN-Vs in a parking lot as you could conventional cars," Borroni-Bird said.
Even though the cars can communicate with each other and drive themselves, drivers can take control if they choose. That`s important, Borroni-Bird said, both for safety reasons and so drivers can get some sense of enjoyment from the vehicle.
Drivers use a joystick of sorts to steer and throttle the vehicle, which can spin in place and accelerates rather quickly.
Still, Borroni-Bird says, there are a number of obstacles that need to be hurdled before something like the EN-V hits the market.
The wireless signals that let the vehicles communicate are problematic because hackers, in theory, could access them and send cars off track; and because a lost wireless connection could cause the automated system to lose control of the car.
"It`s one thing if a computer goes down, but it is another thing if it happens here," he said.
But he sees a bright future for the concept.
"For the last 100 years the car really hasn`t changed in a fundamental sense," he said.
Self-driving cars may buck that trend.
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