How driverless cars will change our world
It's late at night in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Under the glare of street lights, a car could be seen approaching slowly. The sensors on the vehicle emit a muffled sound. A green and blue "W" glowed on the windshield, so there was just enough room to see the inside of the car—the driver's seat was completely empty.
The car drove steadily on the road, and stopped when someone gave directions on their mobile phone to arrive. When the passenger opens the door and boards the car, a welcome sound comes from the audio system in the car. "Good evening, this car is entirely yours - no one is driving in the front seat," it said.
It's a Waymo One robo-taxi that was hailed 10 minutes ago using an app. Across the U.S., the service is slowly opening up to the public, one of many developments that show driverless technology is truly becoming a part of our lives.
The prospect of driverless technology has always been tantalizing. It has the potential to transform our experience of commuting and long-distance travel, keeping people out of high-risk work environments and allowing industries to evolve and collaborate to a higher degree. It is also the key to how we build the cities of the future. In the future, our dependence on cars and our relationship with them will be redefined - reducing carbon emissions and paving the way for more sustainable lifestyles; our travel is also safer. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 1.3 million people die in road traffic accidents every year. "We want safer roads and fewer deaths. Camilla Fowler, director of automated transport at the UK's Transport Research Laboratory, said.
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But there's still a lot to be done if self-driving technology is to become mainstream.
“A self-driving car should be a very calm form of transportation, but not all human drivers on the road are going to do that,” said David Hynd, chief scientist for safety and investigations at the Transportation Research Laboratory. "It has to be able to respond to various traffic violations by human drivers, such as speeding."
That's not the only challenge. Making rules, rewriting highway codes, public opinion, improving the infrastructure of streets, towns, and cities are all issues. Identifying ultimate responsibility for road accidents is the bigger problem. "How to deal with this transition from personal responsibility to vehicle responsibility is a question that the entire insurance industry is studying." Richard Jinks, commercial vice president of self-driving car software company Oxbotica in Oxfordshire. )express. The company has been testing driverless technology in cars and delivery vehicles in the UK and various parts of Europe.
The experts' ultimate vision is fully autonomous driving, including driverless cars in the transportation industry, the wider transportation system, and personal vehicles that can be used anywhere in the world.
self-driving car
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Mcity puts self-driving cars to the test in a simulated city environment with pedestrians crossing the street (Credit: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images)
Even with these hurdles in place, what exactly will self-driving cars look like in the next 10 years?
within two years
The biggest hurdle for the self-driving technology industry is getting cars to operate safely and efficiently in the complex and unpredictable human environment. Cracking this puzzle will be the focus of the next two years.
At the Mcity Testing Center at the University of Michigan, experts are addressing that question. It is the world's first purpose-built proving ground for autonomous vehicles. It is a small simulated town consisting of 16 acres of road and transportation infrastructure, including traffic signals and signs, underpasses, above-ground buildings, trees, homes for testing delivery and ride-hailing services, and different terrains, Such as roads, sidewalks, railway tracks and every possible road condition. Here, experts tested scenarios that could stress even the most experienced driver, such as a child playing in the street and two cars trying to merge at the same time.
"Testing autonomous driving technology like this is all about having hundreds of different variables in any given situation," explains Necmiye Ozay, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan. Her solution is to build A team of diverse thinkers.
“We try to bring together people from different regions, not only engineers from universities, but also academics from other disciplines, like psychologists, more specialists in human-computer communication, because when we are trying to solve security problems, we need more Think and advance from a different perspective,” Ozer said. In the test center, Ozer and her team not only have to test different traffic scenarios, but also have to design the communication between self-driving cars, and even protect the vehicles and personal data from hackers.
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Self-driving taxis are already on the road in Phoenix, Arizona, based on a lengthy test that the Ozer team is conducting. Self-driving taxis are currently only available to the public on a small scale, but they will be rolled out on a larger scale within the next two years. For example, American company Waymo is currently launching its service at new urban test sites, and by 2023 self-driving taxis are expected to be in use in San Francisco and New York. But the company's co-chief executive Tekedra Mawakana is cautious about what services will be rolled out in the future and where, because "safety takes time".
AutoX, an Alibaba-funded start-up, rolled out fully driverless taxis in Shanghai, China, in 2020. Their service may be available in other Chinese cities and California by 2023.
Much of the driverless technology already in use today is in industrial settings such as mines, warehouses and ports, but Hind believes we could expect to see this technology progress to the "last mile" within the next two years. This means the final part of the journey for goods and services - where they are delivered to the consumer. For example, autonomous trucks driving on highways, or even delivery vehicles delivering products and groceries.
within five years
While Apple has said it aims to have a fully self-driving electric car available in four years, recent developments have made industry experts more cautious.
According to Fowler, the new role of traffic regulation and insurance companies in the transportation field needs to be discussed in depth. "It's a very iterative approach," she said, "We can start with vehicles on the road; or we can start with vehicles in an off-highway environment. The advantage of this is that you may have a more controlled environment and develop related work. Then we can scale it up to more models, to more similar situations."
Autopilot
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A self-driving minibus is carrying passengers on trial at an exhibition park in the UK
Fowler said that we expect to see self-driving technology vehicles in new areas, such as high-risk environments, from nuclear power plants to military environments, to reduce the danger to humans themselves. For example, the Rio Tinto mine in Western Australia is currently operating the world's largest fleet of autonomous vehicles. The trucks are controlled from a centralized system in Perth, a few miles away.
"If you can have vehicles that can drive themselves in high-risk environments, with humans remotely controlling them, or even fully autonomous, that's definitely a good thing," Fowler said.
In the next five years, most driverless technologies will still not reach the practical stage. The UK's Transport Research Laboratory is working on autonomous truck driving on motorways, including vehicle marshalling. "Marshalling" is the process of driving a group of semi-autonomous vehicles in close proximity, preventing other vehicles from separating them. Moving closer together allows fleets to save fuel by taking advantage of the reduced wind resistance of trucks ahead, and also helps reduce congestion because trucks take up less space on the road. Plus, the first manufacturer of self-driving trucks, is also developing this area. The company conducted a successful test run this year on the Wufengshan Expressway in the economic center of the Yangtze River Delta in China, and has since started trial runs in Europe.
In addition to these industries, Ozer further predicts, "We may see lighter driverless vehicles that can deliver food and groceries at low speeds on sidewalks and bicycle lanes."
In terms of public transportation, Oxbotica is also cooperating with German-based automaker ZF in the next five years, hoping to make unmanned shuttle vehicles a real pillar of European cities, operating on roads and airports, just like current buses . "The rail shuttles we're seeing at airports today won't need rails in five years. That means it's possible for driverless shuttles to take you from the parking lot to the airport and then directly to the gate and plane," Kim said. Kex explained.
For users, this could mean a more reliable and cost-effective transportation system. Jinx added, "Connecting automated transit systems to each other and having a public transit system that is as efficient as driving yourself is certainly the solution to congestion in the future."
within seven years
All experts agree that the next seven years will determine the success or failure of the initial construction, and how safety and public trust evolve accordingly. However, most people hope that the redesign of cities will lead to greater adoption of this technology, helping us move into a more modern and efficient life. "If you live in a dense urban area, you want to be able to count on the convenience of transit services. You can call up a car and it will be there in two minutes and you're on your way. You don't have to carve out big spaces on the street for parking, This makes the streets much more conducive for self-driving cars to navigate," Hind said.
Without cars parked on the side of the road, the road will be narrower and there will be more green space. While proponents of self-driving cars insist they will make our roads safer, others argue that pedestrians and self-driving cars simply shouldn't mix on the road. This may mean that our cities may need to be reimagined and planned.
Some ideas have been formed. In 2018, IKEA developed a self-driving concept car that doubles as a conference room, hotel and store. This innovation begins by reducing the need for travel and instead providing environments that can be changed on demand when we need them. Our needs can be met everywhere.
Ozer expects that during this period, there will be more autonomous driving intelligence for customers to choose, including the field of station wagons. She explained, "My hope is that when asked if it can reliably and safely transport passengers from point A to point B on a given day by analyzing weather and traffic conditions in advance, smart cars can intelligently answer 'yes'." ' or 'is not'."
within 10 years
Despite the various developments and innovations that are likely to take place over the next 10 years, some experts still believe that there may not be enough time to fully deploy driverless cars. By 2031, "full self-driving—meaning human-like or better autonomous driving under any changing circumstances, where you can put your kids in the car by themselves and take them anywhere without worry— — I don't think that's possible yet," Ozer said.
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Once autonomous driving completely replaces human drivers, will commuters be freed up for new jobs and activities? (Credit: Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty Images)
