Automakers, Google Take Different Roads to Automated Cars

Google had pursued the dream of creating one of a kind of fully automated vehicle but till now it is still experimenting with its self driving car. An automated vehicle pioneer namely Raj Rajkumar has recently stated that automated cars will a take a considerable time and effort to emerge and it will require a close partnership and monitoring by the human for a long time. This might come as a jolt for the Google self-driving car program head Chris Urmson who had earlier stated that Google is on the verge of successfully bringing a fully automated vehicle devoid of any input from human by 2020.

Google aims at improving the automated technology

Raj Rajkumar and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon have emphasized the need of having a solid human intervention at different stages of automated vehicles development. Having a car, which possesses partial automation, will certainly help in reducing few accident risks but it will also end in creating new safety challenges.

A fully automated vehicle or system will not be a right option at the moment as it might lead to scuffle between the system and human. For example, while driving if a automated system suddenly demands the users to make decision regarding the routes then it will put the vehicle users and driver in a fix.

Google is taking a different approach at building the automation strategy, which will be better in every aspect and devoid of any safety issue and it will be available for open buying within next few years.

Major vehicle makers focus Rajkumar’s ways

In the past few years, major vehicle makers such as General Motors and Volkswagen along with the Tesla Motors had showed their interest in the self-driving cars. But these mainstream car players are focusing on the path of automation laid-down by Rajkumar which asks for human intervention during the different stages of development. In order to get advantage over the Google’s self driving car these players had kicked off their different plans of introducing the automated cars. Tesla is currently testing its AutoPilot system, which will offer a hands-free highway cruising along with automated parking capability to the vehicle.

It should be noted that technology which allows the vehicle to park itself is already in the market and many vehicles are getting equipped with the system which brings automatic braking and corrects the steering of vehicle along with maintain a safe distance from other vehicles plying on the road.

Time to retake the control of vehicle has to be optimized

The moment of alerting a driver and by the time a driver can retake the control during the emergency is one of the major sources of worry for the automated car manufacturers. Various studies conducted on the partially automated vehicle have resulted in an average response time of 17 seconds in which a driver is able to retake the control of the vehicle. This means that if an alert is generated by the automated system (vehicle is running at 60miles per hour) and by the time a person will able to regain the control of vehicle it will have covered more than a quarter of a mile.