Transportation is transforming at breakneck speeds as the technologies of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving converge to reshape how we move.
What was once science fiction talk about cars that drive themselves, without human intervention—is rapidly evolving toward reality because of breakthroughs in AI, machine learning and sensor technologies.
You have already heard of Tesla, Waymo, and traditional automakers like GM and Ford. However, most people do not know that these companies are at the forefront of developing self-driving cars that will soon change the face of commuting.
How AI Powers Autonomous Driving
At its core, autonomous driving relies upon artificial intelligence; this is how a self-driving car digests huge amounts of data fed to it through its environment and makes critical decisions in a split second.
Autonomous vehicles’ AI systems rely on a combination of computer vision, machine learning algorithms, and sensor fusion to understand and navigate the road.
Lidar, Radar, as well as cameras provide a full 360-degree view of the environment and scan around for cars, pedestrians and road signs. With such inputs, the AI system develops a continuously updated map of the surroundings, to identify potential obstacles or predict where other cars are likely to go.
From this information, the car makes decisions like steering, acceleration, braking, and lane changing similar to human beings but with much more precision.
Levels of Autonomous Driving
The development of autonomous driving falls into five distinct levels of differentiation by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Level 0: The car has no automation. The human driver controls everything.
Level 1: Driver-assistance technologies, often referred to as cruise control and lane-keeping assistance.
Level 2: Partial automation, meaning that the car takes control of steering and acceleration, and man does it only for oversight.
Level 3: Conditional automation, when the car can drive autonomously under certain conditions but a driver should be prepared to take over.
Level 4: High automation means the car can perform all types of driving tasks in defined regions or conditions without human intervention.
Level 5: Full automation, the car can drive in all conditions without a human driver.
Recent Advancements and Obstacles
There has been tremendous growth in the technology of autonomous driving in the last couple of years.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software is continuously evolving, with an intent that nearly is complete for highways and cities. This software is still not fully independent of a driver’s attention but claims to attain Level 5 autonomy.
Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet that owns Google. It released driverless taxi services in select U.S. cities using Level 4 autonomous vehicles that do not require a human driver for brief rides within constrained spaces.
There are others, too, testing self-driving vehicles in cities, like GM’s Cruise and Ford’s Argo AI.
These are some of the still yet-to-be-conquered hurdles: all regulatory approvals, safety concerns, and robust AI systems that can handle the complexity of bad weather or unknown pedestrians coming onto the road.
The Future Roadway
Out of the gate, fully autonomous cars aren’t here yet, but the tech is coming on pretty fast. In the near term, we’ll see Level 4 vehicles in specific use cases like ride-hailing and delivery vans. Level 5 is still the holy grail.
The more the tech continues and the more that regulation follows, the more a world of driverless cars approaches. Perhaps that’s what is so appealing about it: the idea of a future that’s almost here but not.