It’s hip. It’s happening. It’s the latest innovation to hit the auto world—it’s the driverless car engineered by a robotics team from Carnegie Mellon University… and it could soon be coming to a garage near you.
Sounds like something out of a futuristic movie, but the folks at General Motors say it’s not science fiction (though their still working all the kinks out). The high-tech vehicle features the ultimate cruise control and was recently tested for the media on a closed course at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The modified sport utility vehicle uses a Global Positioning System to navigate and cameras and radars to avoid collisions. It also has preprogrammed manners to allow other cars on the road to pass through stop signs before proceeding itself. The college students that designed the car say the vehicle is run by a computer that relies on more than 500,000 lines of code used to “create perception, planning and behavioral software to reason about traffic and take safe actions while driving to its destination.”
Developers hope the high-tech vehicle will reduce accidents by taking driver error out of the equation. (They pointed out that 95% of the 42,000 U.S. traffic deaths that occur annually are caused by human mistakes.) What’s more, developers say automated vehicles could dramatically improve life on the road by reducing congestion by directing vehicles to space themselves close together, almost as if they were cars in a train, and maximize the use of space on a freeway, he said.
As for when you will have the chance to own these high-tech wonders, GM execs say the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018. Developers say the timeline is shortened because much of the technology used in the driverless car already exists, including radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital mapping.
GM execs also revealed they plan to use an inexpensive computer chip and an antenna to link vehicles equipped with driverless technologies. Its first implementation would be on highways. As for driving on side roads and city streets, motorists would have the option to control the vehicle themselves or continue in the driverless mode.
Sounds great, but I have to wonder who would be interested in buying a driverless car? Would you?
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