Will Our Cars Become Our Chauffeurs?

By Roland Piquepaille

According to this long article from EE Times about the "Self-Navigating Vehicle," the answer is a resounding yes. Many car experts think that autonomous vehicles which avoid collisions and communicate wirelessly with other cars will be the norm in two to three decades. In the mean time, the enabling technologies for self-navigating cars are emerging, from sensors embedded in the brake or accelerator pedals to more powerful computers. Already, partial solutions exist for adaptive cruise control or for staying in a highway lane. One day, we'll be able to do something else than driving our cars through traffic jams, saving us about two hours per working day. This is the future that engineers are building, but will you accept to be driven by your car? So many people like driving that the concept of a completely autonomous car might be delayed for psychological reasons, not technical ones. Read more....

The article starts like a science fiction story.

It's shortly before dawn, and the handful of early-morning commuters on the fog-shrouded suburban highway don't see the deer meandering across the road. Luckily, though, their cars see the animal. In an instant, the closest vehicle quickly applies its brakes and turns its wheels, steering around an otherwise imminent collision. It then sends warning messages to oncoming traffic, as well as to the vehicles behind it, which dutifully apply their brakes and slow to a near-crawl as the deer passes.

None of the drivers, however, is disturbed by the near miss. A few are too engaged in their morning newspapers; a couple more are snoozing for a few more minutes before arriving at the office. All are blissfully unaware of the incident because they, the "drivers," aren't driving; they're being chauffeured by their self-navigating vehicles.

Sound impossible? Many automotive experts don't think so. The technological pieces needed for a self-navigating vehicle are already falling into place, they say. But it will take at least two to three decades before those pieces will be assembled into a car that drives itself.

For example, these self-navigating vehicles "could improve safety by communicating wirelessly with one another when they are stopping or reaching an intersection" (Credit: EE Times).

Of course, we'll get there only step by step. Here are some technologies already under development.

Engineers aren't trying to solve the entire problem; rather they are developing the technologies piece by piece. The first piece, a so-called "adaptive cruise control" system that uses forward-looking sensors to monitor objects ahead of it, is already being put into production vehicles.

Similarly, "lane keeping" systems, which alert drivers when they are wandering out of their lanes, are also reaching the market now. The third piece of the puzzle-a "collision avoidance" system that can steer a vehicle out of an imminent collision-is still under development.

But many other steps will be necessary.

To reach complete autonomy, however, requires going far beyond those three pieces. Vehicles will need GPS-based navigation systems, combined with accelerometers and gyros for dead-reckoning navigation, to help map their routes.

In addition, they will need electronically controlled steer-by-wire, brake-by-wire, throttle-by-wire and suspension-by-wire systems to better enable autonomous steering, braking and accelerating. They will need faster and more powerful computers-a multitude of them-to deal with the extraordinary amount of data being processed within the vehicle. And they will need, of course, better sensors-CMOS cameras and radar-to "see" the world around them.

But The most important technology will be the sensors. The brake pedal will become a sensor, feeling the pressure of your foot and telling the brake what to do. The accelerator will also become a sensor.

All these drive-by-wire systems will read what the sensors know about you and will send messages to the different navigational control elements, such as the steering wheel.

The article also shows that even if engineers are busy building the technologies, they also have dreams.

In the grand scheme of autonomous driving, by-wire systems will serve as the final link in a chain that begins with the radar sensors, which act as the driver's eyes, followed by the processors, which serve as the brain. By-wire systems will take commands from the brain and play the role of the driver's hands and feet, turning the wheel, and applying force to the brake and accelerator pedal.

Ultimately, engineers even foresee a day when vehicles will aid each other, sending wireless communications to one another when they are about to stop, approach an intersection, or steer around an obstacle in the roadway.

After reading all this, are you ready to leave the driving to your car?

Source: Charles Murray, EE Times, October 26, 2004

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• Future
  
• Sensors
  
• Transportation