Driverless cars: are they the future?

Even though we’re in the computer age now, people still have a hard time understanding that self-driving, self-driving cars that resemble ‘Kit’ in Knightrider or the Batmobile in Batman, with their futuristic ability to maneuver, are part. of our new reality. Yet for nearly a decade, Google, the Internet search giant, has been busy bringing this very concept to American roads. Google’s self-driving cars have now completed 750,000 miles on the road with no major incident occurring and the company confidently announces that self-driving car technology, at least as far as cars on the road are concerned, is a reality. . They are confident that their cars can handle almost any scenario that arises on the road. Driverless car technology has become hot news, all the big car companies are involved in research in this area. Now Google is testing its driverless car technology in towns and cities, arguably with slightly less success than on the road.

The solution that most people come up with when driverless cars are mentioned is that it must be some kind of v2n solution in which the vehicles communicate directly with the network through fixed nodal points throughout the city, They can track every car and keep the traffic going by diverting and directing traffic so everything runs smoothly. This type of system would be a natural precursor to a driverless car system. However, Google has taken the diametrically opposite path by relying almost entirely on in-car sensors that interact and respond to the outside world, these sensors in conjunction with GPS and intensive mapping applications (although currently GPS is only good for 10 meters). approximately) are used in a combined operation to guide the vehicle. This is likely because a grid-connected driverless car solution would involve numerous repeaters and amplifiers and would be prohibitively expensive in terms of power consumption, infrastructure, and bandwidth usage. Google should know! However, the technology that Google uses is not cheap either, with a value of $ 100,000 plus or minus a few thousand dollars, this does not make it an option for the man on the street. Aside from this, the emphasis placed on inputting the sensors to maneuver the vehicle also greatly complicates the technology. The prospects of seeing driverless cars on city and town streets in the near future don’t look too bright at the moment, though they will likely be a common sight on the road soon.

Now an Indian company, Trigon, claims to have invented a new driverless car technology that will cost a fraction of Google’s driverless car system and will work almost flawlessly in virtually any condition. Any successful driverless car technology will require split-second timing and excellent coordination and response times to be able to maneuver itself in normal traffic conditions. Rather than trying to solve the problem by loading with a large number of sensors like in Google, Mercedes and Toyota’s driverless car systems. The Trigon-designed driverless car solution uses LIDAR mapping through diffuse laser projection of the surroundings and a minimal number of small cameras. The detailed information obtained about the route in this way is stored in the car’s computers. This means that a car would first have to be driven on a certain route before it could drive that route on its own. It is worth mentioning here that the efficiency and accuracy of 3D LIDAR mapping has kept pace with computers as they have improved their performance. Therefore, it is now possible to achieve 3D mapping in what is equivalent to real time. However, the company soon came to the conclusion that using only cameras and LIDAR output would be time consuming, inaccurate, and lacking in consistency; another solution would have to be found. This is where Trigon has made a breakthrough. The reasoning behind the new Trigon controllerless technology is simple; all cars have brake lights, all cars have turn signals, insurance, license plates, etc. Why not accept the fact that driverless car technology is here, why deny the existence of the technology?

What this basically means is that since the technology exists and has been proven to exist, why not adjust the infrastructure to accept this fact? What Trigon suggests is that all vehicles such as cars, buses, bicycles, etc., regardless of whether they are equipped with driverless car technology or not, must be compulsorily equipped with the latest RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Tag) tags that are capable of transmitting information in real time. These tags will operate vehicle-to-vehicle and not vehicle-to-network and therefore will not disrupt communications or take up excessive amounts of bandwidth. In fact, precisely this type of RFID tags are used to transport nuclear materials. These advanced RFID tags can monitor the temperature, pressure, humidity and seal status of nuclear packages and can be read from a hundred meters away with no line of sight. The RFID tags that Trigon will use give the dimensions, weight, orientation and speed of the vehicle, no other information will be given, thus preserving privacy. RFID tags can be read from 100 meters away (more if needed) without line of sight and are powered by the car’s battery supply using negligible amounts (a few thousandwatts) of current. What this means is that any car equipped with Trigon’s driverless car technology would have a 3D image of the traffic immediately around it in real time, giving the dimensions, speed, weight and line of approach of these vehicles. . These RFID tags would cost less than $ 20 to install, and if installed in all cars, driverless technology would be a breeze. It would be easier and less complicated than the systems used by the post office to classify letters based on zip codes or even baggage handling machinery at airports. This is because instead of the sensors collecting information and analyzing it, all the information relevant to maneuvering the vehicle would reach the vehicle itself, so it is a simple matter of using software based on the old Newtonian laws of motion to maneuver in the vehicle. right direction at the right speed. The technology allows the simultaneous reading of up to 2,000 RFID tags, which is excessive because cars on the road will interact with a maximum of eight other vehicles in their vicinity at any one time. In addition, due to the limited amount of information that is transmitted, the problem of obstructing the bandwidth does not arise, it is a not logical. What this means, in effect, is that the use of this system is possible to give a boost to making driverless car technology on the roads possible. Cars can choose to install the technology or not, but cars that opt ​​for the system will have a system that works.

This is not a new precedent, for example, when cars were still a novelty, the available roads were found to be too difficult to maneuver, resulting in people campaigning for the ‘Good Roads Movement’ with The result of the US government began allocating funds to build vehicle-friendly roads, the rest is history. Mobile phones had a similar experience, it was the installation of numerous towers and repeaters that made mobile phones and communication anywhere in the world a success. Today, mobile phones are as ubiquitous as clothing.

The advantages of implementing such a driverless car system are numerous, starting with safety, economy, time savings, and virtually maintenance-free driving. This is because cars use Newton’s laws of motion, where it is necessary to know the loaded weight of the car at any given stage in order to calculate the appropriate speed at which to travel, so the system has a clear idea of ​​what it is. The car’s “normal” response should be, any deviation from this standard performance would be noted, analyzed, reported, and hopefully rectified. Another great advantage of the system is the enormous fuel savings due to the efficient stop-start and run of the cars. Traffic jams would be a thing of the past and huge amounts of fuel would be saved as a result. The preferred driverless car system platform is hybrids like the Toyota Prius or even all electric cars like the Tesla.

It’s time for the US to lead the world again and set the pace in innovative technologies, driverless car technology could be one of those technologies that can be usefully implemented.