Good News for Bad Drivers – Here comes Google’s Self-driving car!
Google strikes again, and this time the impact is even greater. After the launch of a series of mind boggling projects like the Android OS, Google Glass, then the Google Tango, Google is now continuing its legacy of undertaking projects with immense level of utility, with its latest prototype of the self-driving car.
Bare Beginning
Google’s driverless car project started out in mid-2012 with the aim to develop technology for autonomous cars. The project exhibited significant possibilities when the company managed to modify a Toyota Prius with its experimental driver-less technology.
After subjecting the experimental vehicles to rigorous tests and various phases of development Google, in 2014 finally released its first completely autonomous prototype. The first of its kind, a car with no steering wheels, no pedals and not even a gear-stick that too custom built from the ground up.
From the looks of it !
This rather cute looking, electric driven car only has a start/stop button, with a top speed of 40 Km/hr & other features like padded dashboards and bumpers & plastic mimicking windshield. Google’s designers say that the car’s exterior are designed so as to establish passengers trust on the car, and it may look cute but under the hood it is an engineering marvel.
The geeky angle
The mechanism behind the working of the car is based on how humans use their senses to anticipate their surroundings and walk from one point to another. The car relies on video cameras, laser scanner, and radar sensors to generate a 3-D map of its surroundings, these combined with high-definition maps of the world help the car to draw a conclusion on the car’s speed, handling, acceleration etc.
The radar sensor technology is so advanced that even in congestion, it can sense the movement of pedestrians and cyclists hundreds of meters away. The radar sensor tracks objects present all around it, leaving no blind spot. The car can also identify signal based communication commonly used by cyclists and motorbike drivers and can use those signals to anticipate their behaviour on the road.
The developers of the car expect to revolutionize the way people commute from one point to another. They explained how these cars can manage to drive very close to each other without colliding, this optimization of available space can reduce the instances of traffic congestion and save a lot of the passengers time. Google’s engineers claim that the car is unlikely to collide and hence it does not requires heavy collision reinforcements, resulting into much lighter and fuel efficient cars. This claim is based on the accident-free history of the previous versions of the car, except for a few minor incidences for which the company blames human-error as the car was being driven by the passengers at that point of time.
New Technology, Old laws
Although the idea of cars driving themselves sounds amusing, there are numerous doubts and legal complications associated with it. The primary concern for most of the people is the liability issue in the event of an accident, although the engineers say that these cars are unlikely to collide, yet in the case of computer failure the cars may collide. Secondly, the car relies on internet connection for navigation and location estimation. In cases of network drop or slow network the car may come to a halt resulting into panic among the passengers. In any such event who is to be held liable, the company, the owner or the manufacturer of the car ? & just imagine the insurance related complications that might arise afterwards.
Another major concern is the privacy of the passengers. Google is known to record information about the users through Gmail, Google search & Google+ which it sells to third parties. With the use of such cars it can gather data such as ‘Jack goes to the gym every Thursday ’. Such information is potentially lethal if it falls into the wrong hands.
First Impression
Keeping all the worries aside the car does match the expectations of the developers. A few lucky people who got the chance to test drive this engineering wonder describe the experience as incredible. While most of the people were amused by the smooth drive, the gradual pick up and breaking the rest were impressed by its self-parking ability, only if it manages to find a spot.
As for some people who are not well served by the present day transportation system, people who are old or are disabled and are missing out on many moments of life due to the inability to commute, the independence is empowering and comforting.
The whole concept of cars driving themselves have had profound impact on the people. Some are willing to welcome the change hoping that it will empower them while the rest have some doubts about its practicality. Some think it will revolutionize the way humans commute and will bring an end to the concept of private car ownership, while others are afraid of the dawn of a robot rage. Many things are still unclear about this project and unlike the usual, this time Google has not yet answered many questions as to how, and in which direction the company is going to take the project further. But one thing is clear this project is a giant leap towards the future that we all envisioned, the future which till now was seen only in movies and it sure is full of surprises!!.