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Running Head: DRIVERLESS CARS 1

DRIVERLESS CARS

Vikranth

Computer Science

Rivier University, Nashua, NH, USA.

Driverless Cars 2

Table of Contents

Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5

History ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5

Types of cars ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6

How does an Autonomous car work? ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6

Laser Range Finder …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6

Front camera: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7

Radar ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8

GPS …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

Ultrasonic sensors on rear wheels: ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

Sensors within the car ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 10

Synergistic combination of sensors ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 11

Interpret road signs …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 11

Mapping in advance …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 12

Real-time programming behavior …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13

Progress in the development …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13

Tesla ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14

Google …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 15

Ford ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 16

Vehicular Communication System: …………………………………………………………………………………………… 16

Software ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17

Software role in driverless car: …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 18

Safety with driverless cars ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19

Obstacles: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 22

Resistance to change ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... 22

Concerning liabilities ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 22

Creating regulations for driverless cars …………………………………………………………………………………….. 23

Software reliability …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 23

AI malfunctioning ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 23

Security issues with software ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 24

Environmental conditions ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 24

Advantages with autonomous cars ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 24

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No need of a driver …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 25

Privacy ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 25

Safety: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 25

Time saving ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 25

Less traffic: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 26

Safety: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 26

Manpower ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27

Prone to accidents: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 27

Software & Hardware issues: …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 27

Conclusion: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 28

References:………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 28

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Abstract

Self-driving cars is a concept, which involves in driving cars driving themselves. It was

introduced to reduce accidents, human made mistakes. There are many companies started

implementing this concept. These cars runs with various sensors installed inbuilt to them. This

idea would be great for kids, elders, disabled.

No introduction is needed for what a car is and how it works? Cars have been there for more than

3 decades till date. There are so many models of cars from different companies are there and

some sports models also exist which provides higher power and speeds with attractive looks.

Having a cool car with the high feature set and comfort is everyone’s desire. But that’s all old

school news for now. The revolution in the era of cars is here. Cars that can drive on their own

ensuring safety and accuracy is new technology to which the whole world is looking at. The

concept is still under development and there are some prototypes already released out as beta

testing and research is still going on.

Keywords: Driverless Cars (Vanderbilt, 2012), Radar (ROI, Amin, P3), GPS (ROI, Amin, P3),

Ultrasonic Sensor (ROI, Amin, P3).

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Introduction

Driverless cars concept was introduced about a decade ago. By 2007 there are already

few cars running on the roads for testing. This was a revolution after the creation of cars. The

concept behind the driverless cars is pretty simple, those who don’t like to drive needs a driver,

people who want to work even in travel driver is mandatory for them, to provide safety in any

environment and for people who want to enjoy the long rides rather than wasting time on riding a

straight forward answer for all those people is a driverless car. But they have an option to hire a

driver for all their needs but the thing is privacy, comfort, and safety. Drivers may sometimes

lose control or don’t observe things in surroundings because of which unexpected accidents

might happen and when there is a driver in the car some people or couple won’t have privacy to

talk freely amongst all we don’t need to pay for a person for driving. There are almost 40 years

of background study was there for driverless cars, result which is not getting implemented as

testing.

History

The first true autonomous car was appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon

Universities and ALV projects (Vanderbilt, 2012). It appeared in 1984. Another car appeared in

1987 developed by Mercedes-Benz and BUME Prometheus Project. A major milestone in the

history of autonomous cars was taken place in 1995. CMU’s Navlab 5 had successfully

completed its coast-coast to journey in the US, which was about 2,849 miles. Since this was

achieved there are so many other companies came forward to do research on this concept and

made their own cars. Google is one among them (Vanderbilt, 2012).

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Types of cars

There are two different types of cars that are categorized based on their features which

are said to be automated. Autonomous and automated (Reese, H., 2016). Autonomous cars are the

ones that are capable of self-governance that means they can control on their own. Whereas

automated cars mean they don’t have much brain but can do many things on their own. The term

automated means that control or operations

How does an Autonomous car work?

Autonomous cars work with many integrated components in them. These integrated

components include radar, GPS, laser lights, odometry. The car will use all these components to

detect its surroundings that might be people, objects, vehicles, hills or whatever. These different

types of components help the autonomous cars to determine what type of object is there in its

surrounding and how to respond to it. For example when there is a car moving slowly then the

car have to slow down not to get a crash with them and if it’s a traffic jam then the car has to

wait until it clears. So, all these components have their own preference to make the AC work.

Advanced control systems integrated into the car to interpret all the sensors information and use

the data to identify signage. The CS in autonomous cars is capable enough to analyze the sensory

data and differentiate different objects on the roads. This data is the key information for the

autonomous cars to determine the best path for the travel (Guizzo, Erico., 2011).

Following are the devices/sensors that power the Autonomous car to drive on its own. They are:

Laser Range Finder

Laser range finder is the heart of Google’s self-driving car. It is a roof top camera placed

on the top of the car, Lidar. This was mainly used for analyzing the surroundings of the car. The

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rotating camera with it’s a total of 64 laser beams, creates 3D images of objects so that it can

identify them clearly and help the car see hazards that are there along the way. This laser range

finder device calculates the distance of an object from the car based on the time it takes, for the

laser to project on the object and come back. To project laser on an object and get that laser back

is a crucial process and this device gets it done in 200ms with its high-density laser beams (ROI,

Amin. P1).