Self-driving cars are the future of transportation, and even
though mammoth companies such as Google, Audi, Ford, and others are making
tremendous efforts to bring self-driving cars to the streets, there are still
some aspects that will need to be handled before driver less cars are ready to roll
out. Sure, a lot of the hard work is already done, but the unresolved issues
are still crucial ones. Here’s what’s holding self-driving cars back.
They’re not quite
ready
While we can all agree that impressive progress has been
made in the field of self-driving cars, we can also agree that these cars are
not yet street-ready. Sure, there are some testing units roaming around, but a
driver is also present and ready to take over in case something goes wrong.
The biggest challenge self-driving cars face is take all the
variables into account, which leads to two main problems: quickly changing
variables, and losing the ability to account for some variables.
Let’s start with the first – changing variables. While
self-driving cars are designed from the ground up to account for variables such
as other moving cars and pedestrians, there’s one additional ever-present
variable that can impact the performance of a self-driving car – weather.
Self-driving cars are still having an awful time dealing with snow and icy
roads, for example, despite their complex systems that constantly monitor what
happening around the car at all times. Even though the computers that do the
math for a self-driving car are very capable, they’re still not fast enough to
adapt to a ice patch on the road, and that’s where human reflexes are still way
ahead of technology.
Another issue is that self-driving cars can lose the ability
to account for some of the variables they encounter. These cars pack in RADAR
systems, GPS, proximity sensors, cameras and much more. The failure of a single
one of those elements can have disastrous results.
We’re not quite ready
It’s not only the self-driving cars that need to be ready
for the roads, but also the roads need to be ready for self-driving cars, and
by “the roads” we don’t mean the physical paths only, but their users as well.
As previously mentioned, a big challenge for self-driving cars is dealing with
variables, and the biggest variable of all is the human driver.
Whereas self-driving cars can be programmed to follow the
driving code precisely, humans cannot, so chances are they will sometimes bend
or break the rules, which will likely confuse a self-driving car. The most benefit solution would be for everyone to switch to self-driving cars at once,
and remove human drivers altogether, leaving only rules-obedient cars on the
roads. However, since that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, other solutions
will need to be found. One of the popular ideas is that there should be some
zones accessible only for cars in fully-autonomous mode, whereas other zones
should be suitable for driving with some interaction from the driver as well.
The solution we’re most likely to see implemented, though,
comes under the form of artificial intelligence. Google is already known for
tinkering with the field of artificial intelligence, so it won’t be exactly a
surprise if they opt to “teach” their cars to mimic human behavior when the
situation calls for it.
The world is not
ready
Let’s imagine that self-driving cars are already there,
finally ready to take on the open roads, fully prepared to face any challenge –
what’s the one thing that can put a grinding half to any good idea? That’s
right: bureaucracy. Governments and authorities everywhere are and will continue
to be very skeptical when it comes to giving the green light for self-driving
vehicles to roam the streets. Google had a pretty hard time obtaining the green
light for testing their vehicles on public roads, despite the fact that none of
their cars are fully autonomous at this point, and they all still have a driver
present.
However, we can’t really blame the authorities for their
decisions – just imagine a fierce car crash caused by a self-driving car that
went haywire or got hacked, and all the paperwork and suing hell that will
follow, and you will understand why authorities are not very keen on jumping in
the self-driving car bandwagon just yet.
By Edward Francis and Ppcgb.com!
COMMENTS