Autonomous Cars

An autonomous car (also known as a driverless car and a self-driving car) is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input.

Autonomous cars combine a variety of techniques to perceive their surroundings, including radar, laser light, GPS, odometry, and computer vision. Advanced control systems interpret sensory information to identify appropriate navigation paths, as well as obstacles and relevant signage.

Driverless cars used to be the sort of thing you’d see in sci-fi films - but in 2018 they’re becoming a reality. Autonomous car technology is already being developed by the likes of Lexus, BMW and Mercedes, and we've even tested Tesla’s driverless Autopilot system on UK roads. Across the Atlantic, Google is developing its automated technology in the wild, and Apple is rumoured to be working with BMW on its own – probably automated – car.

The Google Car

Autonomous vehicles rely on a range of sensors to interact with the world around them, with the Google Car prototype coming equipped with eight.

The most noticeable is the rotating roof-top LIDAR – a camera that uses an array of either 32 or 64 lasers to measure the distance between objects, building up a 3D map at a range of 200m and allowing the car to "see" hazards. The car also sports another set of “eyes”, a standard camera that points through the windscreen. This looks for nearby hazards like pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists, as well as reading road signs and detecting traffic lights. Speaking of other motorists, bumper-mounted radar, already used in intelligent cruise control, tracks other vehicles in front of and behind the car.

Externally, the car has a rear-mounted aerial that receives geolocation information from GPS satellites, and an ultrasonic sensor on one of the rear wheels monitors the car’s movements. Internally, the car has altimeters, gyroscopes and a tachometer (a rev-counter) to give even finer measurements on the car’s position, all of which combine to give it the highly accurate data needed to operate safely.

Using these arrays, the Google Car can read the road like a human, but these sensors come with their own limitations. Autonomous cars simply replace the human eye with a camera, leaving them vulnerable to extreme sunlight, weather or even defective traffic lights. In current autonomous cars, the way this selection of pixels is analysed could be the difference between a safe journey and death.

Since Google unveiled its self-driving car, it has spun off this part of the business into a separate arm under the name Waymo. The name comes from Google's mission to find “a new way forward in mobility.”

Connected Cars

Many believe a connection between cars and traffic infrastructure is needed to combat this problem. “Car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communication are essential for enabling autonomous driving,” says Christoph Reifenrath, senior manager in technology marketing of Harman’s infotainment division, who supply in-car tech to the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes.

“For example, as your car approaches a red light, we'll give you information. How can we provide this information in every car at every red light? There has to be a solution for that for if you want to enable autonomous driving in areas with traffic lights.”