PRESENTED BY PRIYA V PRABHU S7 CSE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING ,TRIKARIPUR

INTRODUCTION

The Google driverless car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for autonomous cars.

The Google Driverless Car is like any car, but: • It can steer itself while looking out for obstacles. • It can accelerate itself to the correct speed limit.• It can stop and go itself based on any traffic condition. 

 The software powering Google's cars is called Google Chauffeur.

It can take its passengers anywhere it wants to go safely, legally, and comfortably.

Currently being led by Sebastian Thrun ,former director of Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google’s Street View.

HISTORYDATE DESCRIPTION

Current (2015) The project is currently being led by Google engineer Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View

Past (2005)Thrun's team created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States DOD (Department of Defense).

2011 U.S. state of Nevada passed a law on June 29, 2011.

2012It went into effect on March 1, 2012, and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first license for a self-driven car in May 2012.

2012 The license was issued to a Toyota Prius.

BACKGROUND & OBSERVATIONAutomobiles play a significant role in our lives and afford

many benefits to society.

But no other invention in the history of civilian technology has caused as much harm as the automobile.

Every 30 seconds, someone dies in a traffic accident, adding up to well over 1 million deaths each year.

human error is the cause of over 90% of automobile accidents..

The inefficiencies related with the automobile usage is staggering.

The technology behind autonomous driving is:

• Sensor-based implementation • Connected Vehicle implementation

Google is approaching autonomous vehicles as an opportunity to organize and process mapping and geographic Information to many mobile computers – the vehicles themselves.

TECHNOLOGIES

10 Astonishing technologies that power Google self-driving car :

• Laser range finder

•Front Camera

•Bump mounted Radars

•Aerial

•Ultrasonic Sensors

• Devices within the car

• Synergitic combining of sensors

• Programmed to interpret common road signs

• Mapping in advance

• Programming Real life behaviour

1. Laser range finder

The heart of Google’s self driving car.

LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging, also LADAR, sometimes Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) is an optical remote sensing technology .

Measure the distance to, or other properties of, targets by illuminating the target with laser light and analyzing the backscattered light.

With its Array of 64 laser beams, this camera creates 3D images of objects helping the car see hazards along the way.

calculates how far an object is from the moving vehicle based on the time it takes for the laser beams to hit the object and come back.

Create images for objects in an impressive 200m range.

Google’s self-driving car uses Velodyne LIDAR to electronically “see” the environment.

The module is set inside a rotating drum.

provides additional positional data, but also identifies other cars, bicycles,pedestrians, and road hazards.

By sending out laser beams in all directions, collecting the reflected energy,

and performing some nifty high-speed computer processing, the vehicle can create a real-time, virtual map of the obstacles in its path.

2. Front Camera

Used for near vision

Mounted on the windshield helping the car ‘see’ objects right in front of it.

Detects and record information about road signs and traffic lights, which is intelligently interpreted by the car’s in built software

3.Bump mounted RadarsFour Radars are mounted on the car’s front and rear bumpers.

Enables the car to be aware of vehicles in front of it and behind it.

The radar sensor on the car’s bumpers keeps a ‘digital eye’ on the car ahead.

The software is programmed to (at all times) maintain a distance of 2-4 seconds (it could be even higher) vis-à-vis the car ahead of it.

The car will automatically speed up or slow down depending on the behaviour of the car/driver ahead.

Google’s self driving cars use this technology to keep passengers and other motorists safe by avoiding bumps and crashes

4.Aerial

Car receives information about the precise location of the car, with the help of GPS Satellites.

The car’s GPS inertial navigation unit works with the sensors to help the car localize itself.

GPS estimates may be off by several meters due to signal disturbances and other interferences from the atmosphere

To minimize the degree of uncertainty, the GPS data is compared with sensor map data previously collected from the same location.

As the vehicle moves, the vehicle’s internal map is updated with new positional information displayed by the sensors.

5.Ultrrasonic Sensors

Keep track of the movements of the car and will alert the car about the obstacles in the rear.

These ultrasonic sensors are ready in action in some of the technologically advanced cars today.

Cars that offers automatic ‘Reverse Park Assist’ technology utilize such sensors to help navigate that car into tight reverse parking spots.

These sensors get activated when the car is engaged in the reverse gear.

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6.Devices within carInside the car are altimeters ,gyroscope, and tachymeters that determine the very precise position of the car .

This offers highly accurate data for the car to operate safely.

7.Synergitic combining of sensors

All the data gathered by these sensors is collated and interpreted together by the car’s CPU or inbuilt software system to create a safe driving experience.

8.Programmed to interpret common road signsSoftware that rightly interpret common road behaviour and motorist signs.

• For example: if a cyclist gestures that he intends to make a manoeuvre, the driverless car interprets it correctly and slow down to allow the motorists to turn.

Predetermined shape and motion descriptors are programmed into the system to help the car make intelligent decisions.

programs fed into the car’s central processing unit will work simultaneously, helping the car make safe and intelligent decisions on busy roads.

9.Mapping in advance It maps out the route and it’s road conditions including poles, road markers , road signs and more.

Before a self-driven car is tested , a regular car is driven along the route

Map is fed into the car’s software helping the car identify what is a regular part of the road.

As the car moves , Velodyne Laser range finder kicks in and generates a detailed 3D map of the environment at that moment.

The car compares this map with the pre-existing map to figure out the non standard aspects in the road, rightly identifying them as pedestrians and other motorists , thus avoiding them.

10. Programming real life behaviour

Google Engineers have programmed some real life behaviour in these cars.

While the vehicle does slow down to allow motorists to go ahead, especially in 4 way interactions, the car has also been programmed to advance ahead if it detects that the other vehicle is not moving.

SAFETYThe car itself is limited to 25 mph

Minimises the kinetic energy it could carry into a crash if one should happen.

The front of the car is also made to be as kind to pedestrians

With a foam bumper and a flexible windscreen that is designed to absorb energy from an impact with a person’s body.

“Fault-tolerant architecture”

Seat belts are also provided

Emergency stop button that passengers can hit at anytime.

Defensive, considerate driving style that is meant to protect both the passengers and other road users

The car will wait a second after the traffic lights turn green before it moves off, although this could incur the anger of drivers stuck

behind it.

BENEFITS

Insurance underwriting is a complex issue for autonomous vehicles.

The question of who “owns” the risk if an autonomous vehicle is in an accident Will need to be addressed for convergence solutions to gain mass-

market adoption.

Automobile makers and Google have lobbied state governments to absolve them of any such liability successfully in Nevada and unsuccessfully in California.

INSURANCE

ROAD TESTING

Google's vehicles have traversed San Francisco's Lombard Street, famed for its steep hairpin turns, and through city traffic

The system drives at the speed limit it has stored on its maps and maintains its distance from other vehicles using its system of sensors.

On March 28, 2012, Google posted a YouTube video showing Steve Mahan, a resident of Morgan Hill, California, being taken on a ride in Google's self-driving Toyota Prius.

In August 2012, the team have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles (500,000 km) accident-free.

Four U.S. states have passed laws permitting autonomous cars as of December 2013: *Nevada, Florida, California, and Michigan. A law proposed in Texas would establish criteria for allowing "autonomous motor vehicles".

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In April 2014, the team announced that their vehicles have now logged nearly 700,000 autonomous miles (1.1 million km). 

In June 2015, the team announced that their vehicles have now driven over 1 million miles.

In the process they had encountered 200,000 stop signs, 600,000 traffic lights, and 180 million other vehicles

Google also announced its prototype vehicles were being road tested in Mountain View, California.  During testing, the prototypes' speed cannot exceed 25 mph and will have safety drivers aboard the entire time.

In late May, Google revealed a new prototype of its driverless car, which had no steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal, being 100% autonomous

INCIDENTS

In June 2015, Google's 23 self-driving cars have been involved in 12 minor traffic accidents on public roads

Google maintains that in all cases the vehicle itself was not at fault because the cars were either being manually driven or the driver of another vehicle was at fault. 

In 2010, an incident involved a Google driverless car being rear- ended while stopped at a traffic light.

In August 2011, a Google driverless car was involved in a crash near Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

In June 2015, Google founder Sergey Brin confirmed that there had been 12 accidents,

• Eight of which involved being rear-ended at a stop sign or traffic light.

• two in which the vehicle was side-swiped by another driver

• one of which involved another driver rolling through a stop sign, and

• one where a Google employee was manually driving the car

Cars rely primarily on pre-programmed route data, they do not obey temporary traffic lights

In some situations, revert to a slower "extra cautious" mode in complex unmapped intersections

The vehicle has difficulty identifying when objects, such as trash and light debris, are harmless, causing the vehicle to veer unnecessarily.

The lidar technology cannot spot some potholes or discern when humans , such as a police officer, are signaling the car to stop. Google projects having these issues fixed by 2020.

LIMITATIONS

DATA SECURITYIf Google’s self driving car comes true, we could soon have hundreds of millions of networked self-driving cars with connected power trains and ECUs, all potentially open to hacking.

Numerous security threats will arise once personal mobility is dominated by self-driving vehicles

Unauthorized parties, hackers, or even terrorists could capture data, alter records, instigate attacks on systems, compromise driver privacy by tracking individual vehicles, or identify residences.

They could provide bogus information to drivers, masquerade as a different vehicle, or use denial-of-service attacks to bring down the network

System security will undoubtedly become a paramount issue for transportation systems with the successful deployment of integrated sensor-based and cooperative vehicles

As the use of autonomous and connected vehicle solutions expands, maintaining individual privacy within the transportation system may become even more arduous

AFFORDABILITY cost will be an issue for driverless and self-driving car technologies well into the future

The featured Prius, which starts at around $24,000, is optioned up with a –

•$75,000 to $80,000 Velodyne LIDAR system, •visual and radar sensors estimated to cost about $10,000, •and a nearly $200,000 GPS array.

Not to mention the cost of the driving computer and software.

It may cost more than a Ferrari 599.

CHALLENGES“Driverless car” still illegal in 50 states

•But progress to accepting these cars is happening…

•Nevada Department of Transportation: developing regulations to driverless cars with a goal for it to go mainstream

•License plates issued in Nevada for autonomous cars will have a red background and feature an infinity symbol (∞) on the left side- best way to represent the 'car of the future'

Impacts on Taxi/ Public transport industry

•The arrival of fully autonomous cars will likely reduce the demand for professional drivers of taxis, limousines, and trucks

•Unions for the various drivers will likely respond by introducing doubt about the safety of self-driving vehicles and lobbying against them

Political & Regulatory Issues

who is to blame in an accident?

Google?Car Mechanics?Car Owner?Passenger?

Political & Regulatory Issues

Can “passengers” be intoxicated?

Social issues

WHO can be the “driver”?

Age Limits?

Driving licenses?

ADVANTAGES

• Fewer traffic collisions

• Increased roadway capacity

• Higher speed limit

• Removal of constraints on occupants' state

• Reduction of physical space required for vehicle parking.

• Reduction in the need for traffic police and premium on vehicle insurance

• Smoother ride

• Removal of the steering wheel

DISADVANTAGES•Liability for damage.

•Resistance by individuals to forfeit control of their cars.

•Software reliability.

•Competition for the radio spectrum desired for the car's communication.

•require very high-quality specialized maps to operate properly

•Current police and other pedestrian gestures and non-verbal cues are not adapted to autonomous driving

•Current road infrastructure may need changes for autonomous cars to function optimally.

• Some examples include traffic and street light upgrades that communicate with autonomous vehicles.

Demand is higher.

Automated driving means more people can use cars, and more cars can be fitted safely on roads.

Google’s vision for this kind of self-driving car isn’t an exact replacement for the one parked outside your home

They are designed to be more like shared vehicles, possibly within a family or more likely as a replacement for taxis.

Google says the cars should be road-ready by early next year, but that testing would take more than two years

FUTURE SCOPE

Very useful .

Human safety, infrastructure efficiency, quality of life and a ready customer base are just a few of the key factors

Vehicles could be ready for market in as little as three to five years.

closer to a product people can actually use.

CONCLUSION

REFERENCE

•www.google.com

•www.national.co.uk

•www.collegelib.com

•www.rand.org

•www.slideshare.com