- The pursuit of developing cars
that drive themselves is older than most of us think.
Since the 1920s, there have been a significant number
of efforts put forth to realize this dream.
Released from the burden of driving,
occupants of a car would be free to pursue other activities,
such as watching a movie, doing work,
or even getting some sleep.
For almost 100 years, this goal has seemed elusive.
Research was conducted with government money
and also independently by major car companies.
In the 1980s, the first visual-driven experiments
were conducted.
The first breakthroughs involved the application
of both improved computer vision
and a maturing technology called LIDAR.
LIDAR uses a pulsed laser to illuminate a target
and then measure the reflected pulses with a sensor.
The differences in laser return times
and wave lengths are then used
to construct a three-dimensional representation
of the target.
In the 1990s, more successes were achieved
and often funded by government and private competitions.
While distance was achieved with some vehicles,
complete autonomy continued to be elusive.
Between 2004 and 2007, the U.S. Defense
Advanced Research Agency, or DARPA,
funded a series of grand challenges
that finally resulted in a clear autonomous winner,
a team headed by the Carnegie Mellon University.
By the early 2010s, all the major car companies were making
bets on commercially viable fully autonomous vehicles.
Seeing the writing on the wall,
governments have been scrambling to enact laws
and regulations to keep up with the innovation.
To better understand the complete
autonomous vehicle landscape, let's take a look at
what is called the six levels of automation.
Level zero is no automation.
This means that all controls are made by a person.
Level one is called driver assistance.
Under certain circumstances, the car can control steering
or acceleration, but not both simultaneously.
An example of this is cruise control.
Level two is called partial automation.
The car can steer, accelerate,
and break itself in certain circumstances.
Level three is called conditional automation.
Under the right conditions, the car can manage many aspects
of driving, including monitoring the environment.
The driver must be able to take over at any time.
Level four is called high automation.
The car can operate without human input or oversight,
but only under select conditions defined
by factors such as road type or geographic area.
Finally, there is level five.
This is full automation.
The driverless car can operate on any road
and in any conditions a human driver can negotiate.
While we have production versions
of levels zero through three, as of mid-2018,
we're getting close to level four,
but there is some distance yet
to achieve a viable level five.
In a level five automation world,
humans are simply occupants of the vehicle
with no control capabilities,
except, perhaps, indicating where they want to go
or indicating an emergency situation.
There is no steering wheel or pedals.
This opens up a world of completely rethinking
what the interior of the vehicle looks like,
and the kinds of things that can be done during the journey.
There is as much debate on what it will take
to reach high adoption rates of level four
and five vehicles as there is about timing.
So far, the rate of innovation is exceeding
most projections, but adoption just won't be
about technology.
It will involve change costs, the regulatory environment,
politics, economics, and even breaking the love affair
that many have with driving.
Autonomous vehicles will impact those
that make their living driving,
including all the attendant jobs and industries.
However, the promise of self-driving vehicles is compelling.
We could see a massive reduction in accidents
that cause injuries and deaths.
It could be the solution to the curse of urban congestion.
Vehicles could travel faster,
getting us to our destinations more quickly.
In fact, autonomous vehicles will likely disrupt
urban planning and enable new ways of designing cities,
particularly those historically planned around cars.
Imagine no need for traffic signals, parking spaces,
and even the grid system.
Much like several of the technologies
discussed in this course, autonomous vehicles
represent a convergence.
They will be disruptive and the path they create
will be uncertain.
In fact, this one field may change the world
in the next 30 years in ways that,
right now, are impossible to imagine.