Last year, a new self-driving car was released onto a quiet road in Southern California. The experimental vehicle, developed by researchers at the chip maker Nvidia, didn’t look different from other autonomous cars, but it was unlike anything demonstrated by Google, Tesla or General Motors.
The car didn’t follow a single instruction provided by an engineer or programmer. Instead, it relied entirely on a programmed algorithm that had taught itself to drive by watching a human do it.
Getting a car to drive this way was an impressive feat. The test demonstrated the incredible power of artificial intelligence.Partially automated technology has been around for the last few years but this test was for a fully autonomous driver-less car which made its own decisions without any human interference.
Information from the vehicle’s sensors went straight into a huge network of artificial neurons that processed the data and then delivered the commands required to operate the steering wheel, the brakes, and other systems. The result matched the responses you’d expect from a human driver.
Fully driver-less technology is now at an advanced testing stages. Most of the major players in the autonomous self driving market such as Google, Tesla, Ford, Nissan & Toyota are now making heavy investments in the the technology.
Autonomous tech is also enjoying heavy investment around the world, especially in the UK. There, the government recently announced an unprecedented £20 million investment into the technology.
With all the interest, activity and investment in fully autonomous self driving technology, it doesn't look like it will be too long before our cars will be driving us.
By Peter Logan
7 hours ago
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