Autonomous Vehicle (Robocars) - Future of Tranportation

A Brief Discussion about Robotic Vehicles

Machines are taking over humans increasingly on every advancement technology. As mobile phones and internet technology have curtailed the requirement of travelling or posting a letter manually in order to share any piece of information.  Today, there is no human sphere that can escape from the robotic, mechanic and cyber affairs of the technology.  

Autonomous vehicle is just another attempt towards unmanned technology. Many of my readers might have experienced riding the driverless cars in their fanatic dreams as kids. Science has just made it possible as robotic car can run on its own without driver by sensing the environment and navigating.

The concept of autonomous cars is not infant as it associates a good history with it. The precursory versions of the automated cars include the "linrrican Wonder" in 1925, Navlab series by Carnegie University (1980s). ALV projects (1984) and the Eureka Prometheus Project (1987) were also about the robotic cars. Not to count the various prototypes developed by different research organizations since then.

How it works:

Tools and techniques like GPS, Radar, and computer etc. help these cars in detecting the surroundings, navigating the routes, and identifying the obstacles and different cars on the way to the desired location.

To discuss about the amazing benefits of cars going driverless:

Lower accidental death rates. Lower insurance costs and other costs associated with it. Least traffic congestion. Eliminates the cost spent on hiring a driver. A perk for those who cannot afford a driver or are naïve drivers like elderly people, specially abled people and kids. Calling a cab would turn more convenient, faster and easier. Travelling would turn a leisure with more time to do your work on the way and much more.

Concerns:

Where there are numerous benefits and perks of owning a driverless car, there are certain concerns as well. To discuss a little about the threats and fears associated with the robotic cars, what concerns me the most is the threat of hacking the computer system of these cars. Hackers may intrude the privacy of the riders, harm their life and steal their personal information. Not only this, a demon brain can even cause terror by planning a terrorist activity by hacking the system of these cars. The cyber threats haunt the virtual data and virtual life of people, but, the robotic car hacking can damage and haunt the real lives of people beyond imagination and calculations.

Then there would be a mess because of the existing manual vehicles on the roads, as the complete switch to autonomous vehicles will require quite a leap of time. Even the policy formulators will not be able to come to any clear policy in terms of driverless cars, for example, who should be actually considered at fault if there is an accident due to any technical glitch in the system. If there would be no accusation for accidents by driverless cars, it will lead to new criminal plots.

Talking about the employment creation, yes, there would be more people engaged in making of robotic cars, but, the huge number of people who are already employed with transport department in the form of drivers and assistant drivers will suffer.

I believe the life threatening areas where humans cannot approach or hesitate to approach. These cars can work fabulously as search and research can be performed, goods can be transferred to least accessible areas etc. without losing any human life. 

Talking about the 6 levels (level 0 - level 5) of categorization of automated vehicles. In case of the vehicles that fall under level 0, the system only issues the warnings when required, otherwise, everything is under the control of the driver. The level of control of the system increases and the role of the driver reduces to merely setting up the desired destination up to the sixth level of automated vehicles.

Let us just wait and watch the upcoming technology tremor in our world.