Evolution Of Autonomous Cars

Autonomous cars, also called driverless cars and self-driving cars, are cars that do not need human input to navigate the world. According to MiWay | A History of Autonomous Vehicles, in 1925 the first autonomous car, Linrrican Wonder, took its debut drive on the streets of New York City. The Linrrican Wonder was a radio-controlled driverless car owned by the radio firm, Houdina Radio Control. The car was outfitted with a receiver which received radio signals from a second car that was following behind it. The radio signals controlled electric motors that was fitted on the Linrrican Wonder. The Linrrican Wonder used the electric motors to navigate through New York City (“A History,” 2015). One of the forefathers of autonomous cars was …show more content…
Another huge leap was made in 1987 when HRL Laboratories tested the first off-road autonomous vehicle, which used its system of sensors and an off-road map to navigate through treacherous terrain that consisted of rocks, steep hills, ravines and vegetation (MiWay | A History of Autonomous Vehicles, 2015). By 1989, Carnegie Mellon University utilized the use of neural networks within an autonomous car that were used to steer and control the vehicle. Neural networks are a computer model designed to simulate the behavior of the brain cells that record visual stimulus, and are used in pattern recognition, language processing, and problem solving, with the goal of self-directed information processing (Dictonary.com, …show more content…
At the same time, they can help eliminate traffic caused by either an accident, or someone who has made a driving error. Although these a large benefits, they still wouldn’t be practical for everyone throughout the world. The first issue with driverless cars is, what happens when the autonomous systems fail? Can the passenger of the vehicle take control of the vehicle and carry on with the rest of his/her day? Take Google’s self-driving car for example, Google has designed and produced it without pedals and a steering wheel. This leads to the conclusion that in the situation of a system failure, the passenger cannot regain control of the vehicle. Within more urban environments this wouldn’t pose a huge issue because everything is within a close distance of everything else. The passenger just simply steps out of the car and can carry-on with his or her day. But imagine if the system failure happened while an autonomous car was in the country, where places are more spread out, or the system failure occurred while the car was traveling on a highway at highway speeds. The passenger wouldn’t be able to steer the vehicle off the road in any situation, whether the system failure occurred within the city, on a highway, or in the middle of