Process of how Autonomous Cars are Being Developed. The Essay on Car Development and Innovations

Do you know autonomous cars will take over the automobile industry and the world? Autonomous cars are changing the world. The question is how are they developed? Autonomous cars are developed through a process of robotization and hardware, coding the car, and testing the car.

Autonomous cars are cars that are self-driving with no human input using ai technology to make these cars dominate the automobile industry. Companies have started, with testing it’s looking to be a norm in the industry of automobiles. Also, another great thing is that there are features for the new cars like self robot driving on a freeway and also a cruise control. There’s also another feature where the can-do parking for you. Google, Tesla, and other technologically advanced car and tech companies have created concepts and have or will be testing these technologies. 

The first step of the process of developing autonomous cars is using AI technologies such as lidar and radar to make these cars driverless. Radar is a technology that has been in regular production cars for 20 years which offers cruise control and auto brakes. Radar is mostly used to give higher resolution sensors when visibility is low, like during the night or when there’s a storm. Even though it doesn’t have detailed information about the objects that are detected, it does provide info on the objects. Elizabeth Rivelli who’s a writer for the Simple Dollar says “Radar works by continuously emitting radio waves that reflect the source to provide information on the distance, direction, and speed of objects. Although Radar is accurate in all visibility conditions and is relatively inexpensive, it does not have the most detailed information about the objects being detected“ (Rivelli).

The radar will help identify objects from any distance and determine where it’s going and how fast it’s going. Lidar is also very important and it’s going to be frequently used when it comes to developing autonomous cars. Lidar is a sensor that has a 360-degree vision and accurate depth. It has high resolution and it reaches out to longer distances. Oliver Cameron who writes for a news site called Voyage says “Not only can a LIDAR map enable you to know precisely where you are in the world and help you navigate it, but it can also detect and track obstacles like cars, pedestrians and according to Waymo, football helmets ” (Cameron). It describes lidar as a detector to see the surroundings of the car or any object. Not only lidar has been only integrated into the car, but also the Automated Driver Assistance System.

A writer for Faraday Future says “Today, automakers have begun to integrate lidar into Advanced  Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) [to] visualize the ever-changing environments their vehicles are immersed in. The resulting wealth of data from automotive platform incorporation can allow ADAS systems to make hundreds of carefully-calculated driving decisions each minute ” (FF Team). ADAS is also making driving safer by showing each decision the car has made frequently. This system will help prevent crashes shortly. Lidar is very important because, without it, autonomous cars wouldn’t be able to be possible. 

Coding the car - The second step in this process is to code the car. The code is the commands given to the car. they react like how a normal human driving a car would react like. The developers of these cars use different types of code, but the most popular coding program is C++. Jason Marks of Medium says “ C++ allows you to manipulate the memory onboard your computer, which is very useful when dealing with code that must be fast, deterministic, and repeatable “ (Marks). C++ lets you control the memory of your computer which makes it fast. Coding takes time and it also depends on the number of cases. Coding the car is needed to develop algorithms for the car. It’s required to code the car to make the car autonomous. C++ helps to do that.

The last step in this process is to test the autonomous car. Testing the car is important because it can show and explain if the car is adapting to the code or not. They use a prototype car to see what the car is capable of. Of course, there’s a driver because if the car malfunctions, then it would crash. Jeremy Cohen who wrote this article for Medium.com says some people have accepted an offer to be inside an autonomous car to see how they feel about the car. They have an app on their phones so they can call the car whenever (Cohen). They have made features so the people who accepted the offer for a ride can feel comfortable and learn how the car has been made. This type of testing helps the developers get feedback from the testers to see what can be improved with the car.

This describes the process of how autonomous cars are developed. They’re developed through Robotization and Hardware lidar & radar, coding the car using C++,  and testing the car by a group study. These cars are deemed to be the future of the industry of cars. The question is will you have an autonomous car in the future?

Works Cited

Cohen, Jeremy. “Self-Driving Cars Management - 7 Steps from the Garage to the Road.” Medium, Towards Data Science, 4 June 2020, towardsdatascience.com/self-driving-cars-management-7-steps-from-the-garage-to-the-road-dcea4d2bd2a1.

Marks, Jason. “What Software Do Autonomous Vehicle Engineers Use? Part 1/2.” Medium, Medium, 25 June 2018, medium.com/@olley_io/what-software-do-autonomous-vehicle-engineers-use-part-1-2-275631071199.

Rivelli, Elizabeth. "How Do Self-Driving Cars Work?" The Simple Dollar. 11 Sept. 2020. Web.

Cameron, Oliver. “An Introduction to LIDAR: The Key Self-Driving Car Sensor.” Medium, Voyage, 6 Sept. 2017, news.voyage.auto/an-introduction-to-lidar-the-key-self-driving-car-sensor-a7e405590cff.

“What Is Lidar & How Is It Making Self-Driving Cars Safer?: FutureSight Blog.” Experience a New Species, www.ff.com/us/futuresight/what-is-lidar/.