If you have ever wondered to just sit in your car relaxed and be driven by the car itself, then the scenario is still quite a distant dream. This was the conclusion by the experts at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2013 World Congress. Although a distant realization for the automotive industry this revolutionary thing is definitely bound to happen considering the fact that semi-autonomous driving techniques are already in place in certain vehicles.
Technologies like cruise control, automatic parking, collision warning, lane departure warning, pedestrian recognition and traffic assist, which are equipped in a select cars in today’s times will form the base of a fully autonomous driving system later in the future. The system cannot be implemented for market use until and unless it has been tried and tested and made fool-proof. If not, there is always the risk associated with entrusting on-road safety at the hands of software and technology.
What if post the implementation, a software glitch or an entire system failure happens? Then the entirety of the project of self-driving cars will be questioned at and therefore every major automobile association demands time and projects at least a decade ahead for a thorough implementation to see cars zipping around the city on their own. However, major car companies are already in pace working their minds into achieving the same.
Nissan is testing an autonomous prototype of their electric vehicle Leaf that will automatically turn to the adjacent lane, provided it is empty, incase of a possible collision or an accident. Google’s driverless car project is also on works towards the same goal. Fully autonomous cars will have to deal with real-life situations, have various road information like driving in the correct side of the road etc. All in all, we require much smarter technology and artificial-intelligence than the present times to have a fool-proof, self driving car.
And ofcourse, even in 2025, these smart cars will be equipped with a driver-override system, incase you feel you the need to apply the brakes or control of the situation, or for that matter you wish to have the pleasure of driving on your own for a change.
