DEVELOPMENT OF SELF DRIVING CARS:

In 1969, John McCarthy one of the founding fathers of artificial

intelligence — describes something similar to the modern
autonomous vehicle in an essay titled “Computer-Controlled
Cars.” McCarthy refers to an “automatic chauffeur,” capable of
navigating a public road via a “television camera input that uses
the same visual input available to the human driver.”
In the early 1990s, Carnegie Mellon researcher Dean Pomerleau
writes a PhD thesis, describing how neural networks could allow a
self-driving vehicle to take in raw images from the road and
output steering controls in real time.
In 1995, Pomerleau and fellow researcher Todd Jochem take their
Navlab self-driving car system on the road. Their bare bones
autonomous minivan (they have to control speed and braking)
travels 2,797 miles coast-to-coast from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
to San Diego, California in a journey the pair dubs “No Hands
Across America.”
In 2002, DARPA announces its Grand Challenge, offering
researchers from top research institutions a $1 million prize if
they can build an autonomous vehicle able to navigate 142 miles
through the Mojave Desert.
While autonomous vehicles still seem way in the future in the
decade of the 2000s, self-parking systems begin to emerge —
demonstrating that sensors and autonomous road technologies
are getting close to ready for real world scenarios.
Toyoto’s Japanese Prius hybrid vehicle offers automatic parallel
parking assistance from 2003, while Lexus soon adds a similar
system for its Lexus LS sedan, Ford incorporates Active Park Assist
in 2009, and BMW follows one year later with its own parallel
parking assistant.
Starting in 2009, Google begins developing its self-driving car
project, now called Waymo, in secret. The project is initially led by
Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View.
In 2014, it reveals a prototype of a driverless car without any
steering wheel, gas pedal or brake pedal, thereby being 100
percent autonomous. By the end of last year, more than 2 million
miles had been driven by Google’s autonomous car.
By 2013, major automotive companies including General Motors,
Ford, Mercedes Benz, BMW, and others are all working on their
own self-driving car technologies. Nissan commits to a launch
date by announcing that it will release several driverless cars by
the year 2020.
Other cars, such as the 2014 Mercedes S-Class, add semi-
autonomous features such as self-steering, the ability to stay
within lanes, accident avoidance, and more. The likes of Tesla and
Uber also begin actively exploring self-driving technology, while
Apple is rumored to be doing so.
Audi claims its next-generation A8 luxury sedan will be the first
production car with SAE Level 3 autonomy. The A8’s Traffic Jam
Pilot allows the car to drive itself without any human intervention,
but only under certain conditions. The system only works in traffic
at speeds up to 37 mph, in divided highways with clearly-marked
entrance and exit lanes.
At CES 2018, Nvidia unveiled a new self-driving car chip called
Xavier that will incorporate artificial-intelligence capabilities. The
company then announced that it was partnering with Volkswagen
to develop AI for future self-driving cars.
LEVEL 0: NO AUTOMATION. THE DRIVER CONTROLS STEERING,
AND SPEED (BOTH ACCELERATION AND DECELERATION) AT ALL
TIMES, WITH NO ASSISTANCE AT ALL. THIS INCLUDES SYSTEMS
THAT ONLY PROVIDE WARNINGS TO THE DRIVER WITHOUT TAKING
ANY ACTION.
LEVEL 1: LIMITED DRIVER ASSISTANCE. THIS INCLUDES SYSTEMS
THAT CAN CONTROL STEERING AND
ACCELERATION/DECELERATION UNDER SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES,
BUT NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
LEVEL 2: DRIVER-ASSIST SYSTEMS THAT CONTROL BOTH
STEERING AND ACCELERATION/DECELERATION. THESE SYSTEMS
SHIFT SOME OF THE WORKLOAD AWAY FROM THE HUMAN DRIVER,
BUT STILL REQUIRE THAT PERSON TO BE ATTENTIVE AT ALL
TIMES.
LEVEL 3: VEHICLES THAT CAN DRIVE THEMSELVES IN CERTAIN
SITUATIONS, SUCH AS IN TRAFFIC ON DIVIDED HIGHWAYS. WHEN
IN AUTONOMOUS MODE, HUMAN INTERVENTION IS NOT NEEDED.
BUT A HUMAN DRIVER MUST BE READY TO TAKE OVER WHEN THE
VEHICLE ENCOUNTERS A SITUATION THAT EXCEEDS ITS LIMITS.
LEVEL 4: VEHICLES THAT CAN DRIVE THEMSELVES MOST OF THE
TIME, BUT MAY NEED A HUMAN DRIVER TO TAKE OVER IN CERTAIN
SITUATIONS.
LEVEL 5: FULLY AUTONOMOUS. LEVEL 5 VEHICLES CAN DRIVE
THEMSELVES AT ALL TIMES, UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. THEY
HAVE NO NEED FOR MANUAL CONTROLS.

RELATE SA TOPIC
DESCRIPTION:
A SELF-DRIVING CAR (SOMETIMES CALLED AN AUTONOMOUS CAR
OR DRIVERLESS CAR) IS A VEHICLE THAT USES A COMBINATION
OF SENSORS, CAMERAS, RADAR AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
(AI) TO TRAVEL BETWEEN DESTINATIONS WITHOUT A HUMAN
OPERATOR. TO QUALIFY AS FULLY AUTONOMOUS, A VEHICLE
MUST BE ABLE TO NAVIGATE WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION TO
A PREDETERMINED DESTINATION OVER ROADS THAT HAVE NOT
BEEN ADAPTED FOR ITS USE.
SIGNIFICANCE
BENEFITS OF DRIVERLESS CAR:
Safety
Convenience
Reclaiming our streets
A Cleaner Environment

PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES:

1. Eye Contact
2. Judgment Calls
3. Snow

4. Kangaroos
5. Legal Responsibility
6. Cost
7. Lack of trust
8. Malfunction
Sadly, but inevitably, the first autonomous car fatality takes place.
The incident occurs in Florida while a Tesla Model S is in self-
driving Autopilot mode. The Tesla’s human occupant dies when
the car hits an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, failing to brake in time
after the trailer turns in front of it.
The death sparks renewed debate about self-driving cars and
some of the technical and ethical issues surrounding them on the
road. It’s a setback, but one which underlines the fact that like it
or not autonomous cars are well and truly here.

AS A GROUP WE HAVE CONCLUDED THAT SELF-DRIVING CARS

HAVE A POSITIVE EFFECT TO THE WORLD IN GENERAL. NOT ONLY
IT IS CONVENIENT FOR USERS, BUT IT WILL HAVE GOOD BENEFITS
ALSO IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND WELL-BEING OF THE PEOPLE.
THE INDUSTRY MUST CONTINUE TO DEVELOP SELF-DRIVING CARS
IN MAKING IT SAFER FOR THE USERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT AS
WELL. THE INDUSTRY SHOULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO SOLVE THE
PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES OF THE INDUSTRY.