Basics of driverless cars.The Google Self-Driving Car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for autonomous cars, mainly electric cars. The software powering Google’s cars is called Google Chauffeur.
Lettering on the side of each car identifies it as a “self-driving car”. The project is currently being led by Google engineer Sebastian Thrun, former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View.
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Thrun’s team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.
Legislation has been passed in four U.S. states and Washington, D.C. allowing driverless cars.
The state of Nevada passed a law on June 29, 2011, permitting the operation of autonomous cars in Nevada, after Google had been lobbying in that state for robotic car laws. The Nevada law went into effect on March 1, 2012, and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first license for an autonomous car in May 2012, to a Toyota Prius modified with Google’s experimental driverless technology.
In April 2012, Florida became the second state to allow the testing of autonomous cars on public roads,and California became the third when Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law at Google HQ in Mountain View.
In December 2013, Michigan became the fourth state to allow testing of driverless cars in public roads. In July 2014, the city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho adopted a robotics ordinance that includes provisions to allow for self-driving cars.
How driverless cars work?
What could have prevented the accident? The obvious answer is that you could have — by paying attention. But that answer isn’t so simple.
Driver error is the most common cause of traffic accidents, and with cell phones, in-car entertainment systems, more traffic and more complicated road systems, it isn’t likely to go away. But if drivers aren’t going to concentrate on the road, who is? If technology continues on its current course, your car will do the concentrating for you.
Automakers are developing complex systems that allow cars to drive themselves. They’re also furthering existing technologies such as self-parking and pre-safe systems.
You may even be surprised to find out your old clunker already sports some driverless technologies. Read more here
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