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PREFACE
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.[2] 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. Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challengeand 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.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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, Floridabecame 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.
On May 28, 2014, Google presented a new prototype of their driverless car that had neither a steering wheel nor pedals.
On December 22, 2014, Google unveiled a fully functioning prototype of their driverless car and planned to test it on San Francisco Bay Area roads beginning in 2015.
INTRODUCTION
Picture a car driven with superhuman vision, instantaneous reflexes, and up-to-date knowledge of roads across the United States. You’re probably picturing something from The Bourne Identity or The Terminator. In fact, Google is developing a car that is almost exactly that. It’s called the Google Car and is driven by a robot. With radar sensors for eyes and ears, range finders for awareness of surrounding cars, and Google maps at its fingertips, the Google Car may come to redefine the American automobile. It could enhance the safety of roadways, provide a new driving experience, and even allow the handicapped to travel independently. The car has been thoroughly tested, and performed well on road tests of over 500,000 miles in length. If the last legal and technical hurdles can be overcome, the Google Car has the immense potential to revolutionize travel on the roadways of the world.
The most common model of a Google car takes the form of a robotically controlled Toyota Prius. The Toyota Prius is a fully hybrid electric mid-size hatchback, which uses a combination of gasoline and electric battery for power, thus reducing carbon emissions and improving mileage. The year that Google began work on the robot car, the Toyota Prius was ranked #1 most fuel-efficient mid-size car [2]. It has continued to perform well, and has maintained its top rating in 2013 [3]. In addition to Toyota, Audi and Lexus have also embraced the “hands off” approach, as they have also partnered with Google engineers to make self-driving versions of the Audi TT and Lexus RX450h [4]. Google has outfitted these otherwise traditional vehicles with several radar sensors, cameras, and laser range-finders to observe traffic. Advanced software analyzes this data and makes decisions that control every aspect of the car, from steering and navigation to acceleration and braking [1].
Currently, a human “driver” must still be present in the vehicle, with the ability to enable a manual override at any time [1]. A blind person is capable of overriding the car in this way, assuming the fault condition is not detected automatically. If done manually, the driver has to use an emergency stop button, although systems may vary, depending on the model of automobile [5]. Cars can also be overridden by external sources. A system similar to the type used by air-traffic-controllers could be adapted to monitor safety of autonomous vehicles. Employees working in call centers would be able to anticipate issues that drivers may encounter in their future travels. In relation to autonomous cars, such issues may include impending traffic jams, dead end roads, or changes in route due to construction zones. External monitoring is advantageous in that it introduces a level of perception that the average human driver could never have. In this way, potentially unsafe situations can be avoided, and the safety of the “hands off” driver, as well as the other drivers on the road, is greatly enhanced [6].
The question arises: how comfortable will drivers of autonomous vehicles be, knowing that someone else can control their cars? Cruise control is a comparable advancement in technology. Drivers initially resented their loss of control following the advent of cruise control, but were eventually placated by its efficiency and safety benefits. More recently, researchers have been studying acceptance of adaptive cruise control, which is a step beyond the generic one, in that the system adjusts speed as a function of distance to the car in front of it. Studies have shown that fuel savings and safety considerations seem to be the major motivators to accept adaptive cruise control [7]. “Adaptive cruise control can be seen as a transition to the self-serving car,” said Betram Malle, a professor of psychology in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. Another example is that of the seat belt, which was not universally accepted when first released. After the public realized the safety benefits of seatbelts, however, their use increased and was eventually made mandatory by law. Indeed, safety concerns can often prompt the general public to give up some sense of individual autonomy, and if extreme enough, lead to government intervention [6]. Perhaps the safety benefits of driverless cars will one day motivate the government to draft legislation that prohibits manual driving. Gary Marcus, a writer for The New Yorker, exclaimed, “Within two or three decades the difference between automated driving and human driving will be so great you may not be legally allowed to drive your own car” [8].