How do Self-Driven Cars Work?

The idea of self-driven cars seems alien to people who don’t own one, especially since they’re so new. If the idea of a car that could drive by itself was introduced to me just a few years ago, I would have stared in shock. I, along with the majority of the world, would have thought, “How can a car, a vehicle that was created to be manually driven, drive automatically?” Nowadays however, they are considered the future of transportation, and more and more people are accepting the feasibility of the idea.

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Written By: Vihitha Kumar

December 22, 2022

Self-driven cars consist of gadgets that all work in unison to carry the car forward. To drive, the eyes of a driver are replaced with 3 different types of sensors that can perceive the road around the car called the radar, lidar, and camera. These sensors are more common than one might think. There are over 100 similar sensors in the phones that are in everyone’s pockets, and even more in computers and other electronics. These sensors all serve different purposes. The radar has low resolution but uses radio waves to see very far. This is especially important on highways, where cars are spaced out, but going at fast speeds, so being able to see far away is essential. The lidar (Light Imaging Detection and Ranging) has a higher resolution than the radar, and is able to see in 3D, so it can make out shapes and sizes of objects and how far away they are. It works by bouncing light rays off different objects to collect information. Finally, cameras are used to see specific objects in the highest resolution. It’s essential for road signs, traffic lights, and seeing from different angles (like wide-angle and close-up). The lidar and the camera work together with GPS signals to form a map for the car to reference. GPS signals are also used to plan out general paths of a specific place, which are refined as the car travels. During this refining process, the car uses machine learning to steer clear of any obstacles on its path. Sensors on the car continuously scan the surroundings to inform the AI of obstacles and steer away. This might sound familiar, and rightfully so. The same navigation pattern is used by bats to see in the dark through the process of echolocation. Bats send out signals through sound waves that bounce off different things. The sound waves help the bat determine the size, shape, and relative distance of the object, which enables the bat to create a map of its surroundings midflight. Echolocation technology doesn’t often fail the bat since it’s so precise that it leaves no grey area or uncertainty. This makes it a perfect inspiration to replicate with the AI in cars, and the results carry through. The AI technology in self-driven cars has proven to be reliable time and time again. However, at the end of the day, the psychological human response to letting AI take over is to be cynical. It all boils down to the ethics involved in driving. There’s a popular moral dilemma that outlines this, and it talks about you driving at the speed limit and seeing a child running onto the road with a bunch of bystanders on the sides. Applying the brakes won’t help, the car is moving too fast, and you would still hit the child. To save the child, you must steer the car either left or right, but doing that would end up in you running into the bystanders on the sides of the road. What would you do? Regardless of what you picked, self-driven cars wouldn’t consider the ethics behind it, and just look at the objective problem, which is why so many people are reluctant to give them a try. Keeping this in mind, relinquishing all control isn’t necessary to use these cars, and ensuring that a person is present behind the wheel even when autopilot is in use would encourage more people to try out this new, innovative technology.

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Works Cited:

-https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/how-do-self-driving-cars-work/ https://dnr.maryland.gov/wil

-https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/self-driving-cars-behavior.php