4
Vehicle control
Vehicle control includes commanding speed and direction of
motion. One of many methods used for vehicle control em-
ploys a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control algorithm
to process sensor data.
Path planning
The function of path planning is determining the best route
for the vehicle from an origin to a destination. Essentially, path
planning is a problem of graph theory. Until now, this was an
NP-hard problem (NP for nondeterministic polynomial time). To
solve this problem, heuristic algorithms are a common method.
Moreover, when a vehicle following the planned path is mov-
ing from origin to destination, it is required to predict motions
of other moving objects in the road environment (vehicles,
pedestrians, cyclists, animals) based on the available sensor
data; then, it is required to avoid collision with those objects by
dynamically updating the path.
Issues and impacts
In addition to technical issues, some legal and regulatory
issues need to be considered for the commercialization of
automated driving systems. One legal issue is the licensing of
a self-driving car. A second one is the division of responsibility
when a crash occurs. There are also ethical issues. An automat-
ed driving system might have to choose among various colli-
sion targets in an emergency based on significant uncertainties
in the data collected by its sensors. An example of a difficult
choice might be when there is a cliff on one side of a road and
a pedestrian on the other side, but not room for both or time to
stop to avoid a collision with the pedestrian.
Although there are many obstacles remaining in the devel-
opment of automated driving, it will most likely be realized in a
gradual way. Nowadays, many new cars have level 1 assistance
systems, and a few have level 2 partial automation. There are
no level 3 systems yet (see table). Within the next decade, some
level 4 systems will probably be introduced in limited, special-
ized applications, such as for low-speed urban transit shuttles,
small package deliveries, and long-haul trucking.
Once realized, automated driving is likely to have a pro-
found impact on human society beyond human beings being
relieved of the driving task under some conditions. The four
basic needs of human survival are food, clothing, shelter, and
transportation. If level 4 automation is implemented, then it
is conceivable that human material production will be greatly
changed and improved. For agricultural production, automated
equipment could help people sow, fertilize, and harvest crops.
Therefore, the impact of self-driving car implementation on hu-
man beings would be epic.
Self-Driving Car (continued)
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