Tutorial Autonomous Cars

Leong Weng Fon TP038881 (Leader)

Tang Ye Huang TP038208

Jose Lie TP042789

Liang Ju Yen TP043931

1. What is autonomous cars? How it works? Who are the major players in this?
- An autonomous car is a vehicle that can guide itself without human conduction. This
kind of vehicle has become a concrete reality and may pave the way for future systems
where computers take over the art of driving. An autonomous car is also known as
driverless car, robot car, self-driving car or autonomous vehicle.
- There are several systems that work in conjunction with each other to control a
driverless car.
a. Radar sensors dotted around the car monitor the position of vehicles nearby.
b. Video cameras detect traffic light, read road signs and keep track of other vehicles,
while also looking out for pedestrians and other obstacles.
c. LiDAR sensors help to detect the edges of roads and identify lane markings by
bouncing pulses of light off the car’s surrounding.
d. Ultrasonic sensors in the wheels can detect the position of kerbs and other vehicles
when parking.
e. Finally, a central computer analyses all of the data from the various sensors to
manipulate the steering, acceleration and breaking.
- The major players in the autonomous cars are Tesla, Apple, and others.
2. What are the changes in public policies?
- Allowing vehicles to be build without a steering wheel.
- Regulations in all these places will have to change to accommodate the building,
manufacturing and operations of AV purpose-built vehicles.
 - As AV’s mature beyond SAE level 3 advanced driver-assisted systems and move fully
into self-driving features, international guidelines are being updated to address
potential remote operations, as well as licensing and permit changes.
- Such guidelines include rules around occupancy requirement, reporting requirements,
electrification and considerations for land use and transit planning.
3. How this technology will benefit the society?
a. Less Traffic
- Driverless vehicles communicate with each other and their surroundings, hence they
are able to identify the optimal route. This helps spread demand for scarce road space.
b. Increase in safety
- Worldwide, 1.2 million people are killed each year in traffic accidents. Widespread
embrace of self-driving vehicles could eliminate 90% od all auto accidents in the U.S.
alone, preventing up to $190 billion in damages and health costs annually and saving
thousands of lives.
c. More Free Time
- With autonomous car, you just have to sit back and relax, read a book, watch a game
or take a nap while the car does all the driving.
d. Better Transportation Service
- Self-driving cars incorporated into car-sharing services like Zipcar could affordably
transform cars from a thing people own to a service they call up on demand.
e. Better Health
- Less traffic will improve people’s health, since traffic jams have been shown to cause
a rise in blood pressure, depression and anxiety, as well as a decrease in cardiovascular
fitness and quality sleep.
f. Reduced Emission
- Global CO2 emission from transport have grown 45% from 1990to 2007. The use of
electric autonomous taxis alone could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 87 to 94%
per mile by the years 2030.
4. What are the risk of autonomous vehicle?
a. Dependent data:
- Current industry in Autonomous Vehicle is mostly depending on the data provided.
Hence might cause unforeseen risk such as incorrect data, data overload, might may
lead to the system interpret invalid data.
- Depending on data also might cause data to be corrupted and unreadable, cause the
system to crash on operation. As result most Autonomous Vehicle might only can be
called as Semi-Autonomous Vehicle as human can take over when system fails.
b. Analyze of data:
- Even if the data provided is accurate, we also have risks on the performance of
analyzing the data. Company needs to have specialized dedicated hardware fast enough
to parse data and makes quick decisions. This might cause problem on highly congested
area due to the number of objects to be processed, creates latency for the car. As result
the machine will be return much slower than human reflexes.
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