self-driving cars

There has been incremental, but steady, progress in the development of self-driving cars. Some form of driver-assistance technology focused on safety is now inside most new vehicles.

An autonomous car

 is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. An autonomous car can go anywhere a traditional car goes and do everything that an experienced human driver does.

The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) currently defines 6 levels of driving automation ranging from Level 0 (fully manual) to Level 5 (fully autonomous). These levels have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

A self-driving car

 is known as an autonomous vehicle (AV), driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car) is a car incorporating vehicular automation, that is, a ground vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and moving safely with little or no human input. The future of this technology may have an impact on multiple industries and other circumstances.

Self-driving cars combine a variety of sensors to perceive their surroundings, such as thermographic cameras, radar, lidar, sonar, GPS, odometry and inertial measurement units. Advanced control systems interpret sensory information to identify appropriate navigation paths, as well as obstacles and relevant signage.

?How exactly do self-driving cars work

Engineers have been attempting prototypes of self-driving cars for decades. The idea behind it is really simple: Outfit a car with cameras that can track all the objects around it and have the car react if it’s about to steer into one. Teach in-car computers the rules of the road and set them loose to navigate to their own destination.

This simple description elides a whole lot of complexity. Driving is one of the more complicated activities humans routinely do. Following a list of rules of the road isn’t enough to drive as well as a human does, because we do things like make eye contact with others to confirm who has the right of way, react to weather conditions, and otherwise make judgment calls that are difficult to encode in hard-and-fast rules.

Even "Full Self-Driving" requires human oversight

Tesla, more than any other automaker, has heavily marketed the idea of a car that can genuinely drive itself.

Its "Autopilot" driver-assistance technology is a major selling point for the vehicles.

And a small number of drivers are now getting to test the long-promised "Full Self-Driving" software, which allows a Tesla to steer itself on ordinary city roads — handling turns, waiting at stoplights and responding appropriately to the sometimes-unpredictable behavior of other vehicles and pedestrians.

For now, Tesla's technology still requires a human to have their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, despite being called "full self-driving."

How Google's Self-Driving Car Will Change Everything

Imagine getting into your car, typing—or, better yet speaking—a location into your vehicle’s interface, then letting it drive you to your destination while you read a book, surf the web, or nap. Self-driving vehicles—the stuff of science fiction since the first roads were paved—are coming, and they’re going to radically change what it’s like to get from point A to point B.

In 2009, Google started the self-driving car project with the goal of driving autonomously over ten uninterrupted 100-mil routes. In 2016, Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company, became a subsidiary of Alphabet, and Google's self-driving project became Waymo.

Since then, Waymo has invited the public to join the first public trial of autonomous vehicles operated by the Waymo Drive and introduced its first fully autonomous vehicles operated by the Waymo Driver on public roads without anyone in the driver’s seat.