Imagine taking a week off from work and going on an incredible journey. Sleeping while overnight driving to an exotic destination. Well by 2035 there will be fully automatic cars, and hopefully recreational vehicles (motorhomes).
The advancement of technology has impacted all aspects of human life, the automobile industry included. Cars now have self-driving features, an evolutionary and phenomenal improvement in human history. 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.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is available, as well as power self-driving car systems. Developers of self-driving cars use vast amounts of data from image recognition systems, to build vehicles that can drive autonomously.
The neural networks identify patterns in the data, which is fed to the machine learning algorithms. That data includes images from cameras on self-driving cars from which the neural network learns to identify objects in the driving environment.
For example, Google's self-driving car project, called Waymo, uses a mix of sensors, lidar (light detection and ranging, and cameras and combines all of the data those systems generate to identify everything around the vehicle to predict what those objects might do.
This happens in a matter of seconds. The more the system drives, the more data it can incorporate into its deep learning algorithms, enabling it to make more nuanced driving choices.
The best self-driving cars will take a lot of the stress out of day-to-day driving, while their driver-assistance tech could help prevent a collision. Whether it's keeping you in your lane on the motorway or maintaining a steady distance from the car in front, these cars are sure to keep you on the straight and narrow.
Tesla model 3 launched in 2018 is one of the best-selling cars in the United Kingdom. Electric car manufacturer Tesla shouts the loudest about its self-driving tech, and it's not entirely a load of hot air.
Tesla's basic Autopilot system is standard on all the cars it sells in the UK. This combines adaptive cruise control, emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring and lane-keeping assist systems. Essentially, once you're on the motorway, it'll match the speed of the car in front and keep you in your lane with little input from the driver.
The Tesla Model 3 can be equipped with Enhanced Autopilot which can change lanes (you just need to indicate and it'll monitor the surroundings and move over if it's safe to do so), as well as park itself. Then there's the Full Self-Driving Capability is an expensive option which gives the Model 3 the ability to stop at traffic lights or stop signs. Tesla says it'll soon be adding the ability to autosteer on city streets.
Well, there you have it, a brief introduction to self-driving vehicles. If you like the text then please click the like below.
Until the next blog, keep up the good work. Check out the vocabulary section below.
Have a great day!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Vocabulary builder:
Predict (v) = forecast, foresee, envisage, expect, guess, calculate, foretell, prophesy
Blind-spot (n) = an area that somebody cannot see, especially an area of the road when they are driving a car.