For those of you who share my dislike for long drives and have wished someone would invent the self-driving cars we saw in the movie Minority Report, luxury auto-maker BMW has announced a prototype vehicle that brings our dreams one step closer to reality. Pictured above is a BMW 5-series vehicle that is being driven by a computer via an array of sensors that are feeding it information and allowing it to react and anticipate obstacles and road conditions. While the German car company looks to have successfully created a car that needs no human direction, we’re worried about the accidents that will result from others drivers doing double-takes and trying to figure out what’s going on.
Called “ConnectedDrive Connect” (CDC), the package includes hardware such as radar sensors, cameras, laser scanners and ultrasonic sensors coupled with a software application that can interpret the readings. The greatest challenge for the BMW engineers was coming up with the large number of different algorithms necessary to handle all the different situations that may arise while driving. With heavy testing however, they have made great strides and are confident enough to say that the system can be used safely on any road that has been mapped out. According to one of the lead designers, the vehicle that has the concept system installed has traveled over 3,100 miles using no human assistance.
Before you go rushing out to your local BMW dealer looking for a Mini-Cooper with this package installed, the auto-maker says that we are still ten to fifteen years away from seeing this technology become a part of everyday life. Much like how airbag adoption progressed, BMW believes that computer-aided driving systems will slowly start to creep in and become a standard like the life saving device has. There are a good number of safety concerns to work out, plus the fact that public perception has to be adjusted to seeing the system as a safer way to drive since a computer doesn’t get tired or distracted (of course redundancy will be key since it would be bad to have a hard drive failure on the freeway). The other hurdle is the sheer cost of the technology. It’s been estimated that the 5-Series BMW is showing off cost upwards of $200,000. That isn’t exactly pocket change!
BMW is not the first company to be interested in driverless cars — Google, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen have all introduced computer-controlled vehicles and are actively investigating. The estimated money to be made in this area right now is about $10 billion, but experts for the companies involved believe that number will balloon to $130 billion by 2016.
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