Current Use and Key Components

Many key technologies go into self-driving cars which allow them to perform as efficiently as they do now. These technologies include:

• The car navigation systems (geographic information systems and global positioning systems);
• location systems utilizing satellites (such as GPS as well);
• artificial intelligence;
• electronic mapping;
• map matching;
• global path planning;
• environment, radar, laser, and visual perceptions/detectors;
• and vehicle control technologies.

All these technologies play a role, but two of these main technologies that are extremely important to be developed further for the future of autonomous vehicles are the sensor networks and vehicle positioning systems. According to a scholarly article from the IOP Conference Series, “The purpose of the external sensor network is to use onboard measuring devices to recognize and classify objects of the road scene… and to deliver information about them to the virtual road scene assembler” (Vdovin and Khrenov, 2019). The referenced “vehicle road scene” would include objects such as pedestrians, other vehicles/cyclists, traffic lights/signs, and any other general obstacles that a self-driving vehicle would need to avoid crashing into. Road environment criteria would include the weather of that day, traffic laws/rules in the area, and the condition of the road/any markings on the road. The technology involved in these sensor networks for them to function includes ultrasonic, radar, light, optical, and infrared sensors,which all make up the sensor networks to attempt in enabling self-driving vehicles to work in all possible circumstances and environments. As for the vehicle positioning systems, the use of GPS, GLONASS, or GALILEO satellites for vehicle routing and positioning is the same in self-driving cars as conventional ones, with the same purposes of determining coordinates, re-routing if facing obstacles (such as an accident on a freeway a few miles ahead), exchanging map data, and determining vehicle motion, direction, and acceleration. Some current issues that lie with self-driving cars, such as a Tesla, are the accuracy of said technologies are not optimal without human input yet. For example, turns that are too tight to be made by the autonomous vehicle because of GPS or environment sensors not being completely accurate.