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How far has self driven car proven successful?

Driverless cars use advanced technology and sensors to help navigate the road safely. The numerous video cameras and sensors in these cars enable them to read road signs and detect the edges of the roads, traffic signals, and the presence of other vehicles. While the world is getting ready to commercialize self driving cars, India still stares at a long road ahead. Policy decision is just one of the many hurdles that self-driving cars must clear before zooming of India.

It is estimated that by the year 2030, self-driving cars will constitute 25 percent of all the cars plying on global roads. All of this data is processed in a central control system, which then controls the steering and movement of the vehicle at a safe distance from other vehicles.

In recently, there is several R&D work underway across the globe. Companies like Google, Tesla, Mercedes, Ford, Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen, and many more are leading the efforts by leveraging the latest technologies likes machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics engineering. In India, too, there are many startups that are experimenting with self-driving technology.

Challenges that India must overcome for self-driving cars to come into the country

The adoption of self-driving cars in India is still a distant dream. Some of the reasons include:

• In India ranked 24th out of the 25 countries where KPMG gauged the preparedness for self-driving vehicles through its Autonomous Vehicle Readiness Index 2019.
• The government’s argument is that there are 40 lakh drivers in the country with a shortfall of 25 lakh drivers. The government of India has taken a clear stand against for the introduction of driverless cars in India citing job loss as the primary reason. The government doesn’t want to put employment opportunities for the skilled drivers at stake and cites that jobs of around various people may be at stake due to the introduction of this technology. Further, the government believes that the infrastructure required complete with organized driving conditions for such a technology is still not available in the country.
• The roads in India aren’t conducive for self-driving cars when compared with their western counterparts. Cities such as Delhi and Mumbai have roads that overflow with vehicular traffic at any given time of the day. Further, drivers in India don’t follow the traffic rules. They jump the signals and don’t drive in designated lanes. This reckless driving behavior is something that a driverless car isn’t trained to preempt.
• There are challenges several economic feasibility of launching driverless cars in India as companies are sceptical of enormous R&D costs as well as the market viability.

How self-driving cars work

Artificial Intelligence technologies power self-driving car systems. Developers for the self-driving cars use vast amounts of data from image recognition systems, along with machine learning and neural networks, to build systems that can drive autonomously.

The neural networks identify patterns in the data, which is fed to the machine learning algorithms. That data includes images from cameras on self-driving cars from which the neural network learns to identify traffic lights, trees, pedestrians, curbs, street signs and other parts of any given driving environment.

For instance, Google's self-driving car project also called Waymo, uses a mix of sensors, lidar (light detection and ranging - a technology similar to RADAR) and cameras and combines all of the data those systems generate to identify everything around the vehicle and predict what those objects might do next. This happens in fractions of a second. Maturity is important for these systems. The more the system drives, the more data it can incorporate into its deep learning algorithms, enabling it to make more nuanced driving choices.

India must not ignore the benefits

Driverless cars also make for an excellent mobility option for people with physical disabilities that prevent them from driving on their own. While autonomous cars may take more time to become a reality on the Indian roads, the beginning for autonomous vehicles has been made in the form of self-driving tractors and trucks. Despite all the challenges, India can’t look the other way when it comes to adoption of autonomous vehicles. They afford people to utilize of their commute time more productively instead of losing it on just driving. They can minimize the human errors that are the prime cause of road accidents and can help save precious lives. Companies such as Escorts, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Flux Auto are ready to introduce them upcoming soon.