Are Autonomous vehicles the future of road transport as we see it?

This year has seen a revolutionary turn in the automobile industry, in the form of the first ever partly automated Tesla’s autopilot system. Over the years, an on going debate has ensued that argues the viability of automated vehicles. Amidst the many prototypes developed by the likes of Google, Audi and Mercedes, Tesla’s Auto Pilot is the only road ready and implemented system we see today. Yes it is not a fully automated driving system, but what it does to the market is help develop trust between the people and machine. Tesla’s autopilot enables the driver to effectively let the car drive on its own in expressways without any inputs apart from instructions of lane changes. Though it has seen its own controversies, the network of Tesla cars constantly upload information helping the self learning process of the system.

Mercedes-Benz F015 Autonomous package of luxury.

How the Tesla Model S examines and implements a lane change in high speed expressway. Note that in the diagram the only autonomous vehicle is the one in Red tha is to make the desired change. The other vehicles can be either Man or Machine controlled.

So Autonomous Self Driving Cars, are they actually safe? 

A view from the Tesla Model S Cockpit

2020 has been earmarked as the year when completely self driven cars may finally make it into the mainline transport industry. But with just 4 years to go, are we really sure that these cars are safe enough to be allowed to run along with Man driven vehicles. Having both forms of vehicle poses the basic problem of a large number of variable, many of which cannot be pertained as they depend on individual driver actions, unlike when controlled by machines. The machine, or intact any one of us, cannot predict the behaviour of another being in the system, which can lead to undesired turn of events. Had the roads been a network of autonomous vehicles, where each car is connected to a central system, thus administering behaviour of each vehicle, it would have been a very stable system, but again not a viable one. 

A lot of work is going into development of systems that allow for autonomous vehicles. What do you think are the biggest problems?

Any autonomous vehicle, even partly has to have a complete field idea of its surroundings. A plethora of sensors all around the vehicle provide the data-streams.