driverless car

A driverless car (sometimes called a self-driving car, an automated car or an autonomous vehicle) is a robotic vehicle that is designed to travel between destinations without a human operator. To qualify as fully autonomous, a vehicle must be able to navigate without human intervention to a predetermined destination over roads that have not been adapted for its use. Companies developing and/or testing driverless cars include Audi, BMW, Ford, Google, General Motors, Volkswagen and Volvo. Google's test involved a fleet of self-driving cars -- six Toyota Prii and an Audi TT -- navigating over 140,000 miles of California streets and highways. A single accident occurred during one of the infrequent occasions when a human was driving. Another test of over 1000 miles was completed successfully with no human intervention. Heres how Googles cars work:

The driver sets a destination. The cars software calculates a route and starts the car on its way. A rotating, roof-mounted LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging - a technology similar to radar) sensor monitors a 60-meter range around the car and creates a dynamic 3-D map of the cars current environment. A sensor on the left rear wheel monitors sideways movement to detect the cars position relative to the 3-D map. Radar systems in the front and rear bumpers calculate distances to obstacles. Artificial intelligence (AI) software in the car is connected to all the sensors and has input from Google Street View and video cameras inside the car. The AI simulates human perceptual and decision-making processes and controls actions in driver-control systems such as steering and brakes. The cars software consults Google Maps for advance notice of things like landmarks and traffic signs and lights. An override function is available to allow a human to take control of the vehicle.

Proponents of systems based on driverless cars say they would eliminate accidents caused by driver error, which is currently the cause of almost all traffic accidents. Furthermore, the greater precision of an automatic system could improve traffic flow, dramatically increase highway capacity and reduce or eliminate traffic jams. Finally, the systems would allow commuters to do other things while traveling, such as working, reading or sleeping

Car Accidents
Prevention Strategies Avoid the top ten driving errors. #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 Wear a seatbelt and make sure it is buckled Make sure child safety seats are used properly Don't take big risk Pay attention to the road Don't Drink and drive

#6 If you are drunk use a designated driver because you might lose your life #7

Avoid the top ten Driving errors Excessive speed Failure to wear a seatbelt Inattentiveness Distraction inside the car Defensive driving techniques Incorrect assumptions about the other driver Tail gating or not leaving enough space between drivers Not checking traffic before pulling out Passing without checking traffic Not checking for on coming cars when pulling away from the curb
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AEB to prevent a car accident claim

Motor manufacturers and road safety experts take passenger safety very seriously. The main cost in a road traffic accident is, of course, the enormous emotional impact of death and serious personal injury caused, but in monetary terms it is the ensuing car accident claim that an injured party will bring which takes a huge financial toll on insurers. Car accident claims are made not only by the occupants of vehicles, but by pedestrians as well. According to Thatcham, the Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre, children are more likely to be killed or seriously injured as pedestrians than as car passengers. In 2009, 62 per cent of children killed on roads in the UK were pedestrians. More than 7,000 pedestrians are killed annually and around 150,000 suffer serious personal injury on EU roads. In the UK, more than 6,000 pedestrians are killed or seriously injured each year. Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) to prevent car accident claims Sometimes drivers are less likely to see a pedestrian than they are another vehicle, and so the likelihood of a car accident increases, however, AEB is a collision avoidance system designed to automatically apply the brakes when a crash is imminent. Sensors at the front of the car survey the roadway ahead and if a potential collision is calculated different levels of braking will be applied. When a collision is estimated with a far-time span partial autonomous braking will be applied if the collision is deemed imminent, full autonomous braking will occur. The AEB system will be activated when it is determined that the driver has not applied brakes sufficiently to stop the vehicle and where he/she has not attempted to steer around the detected obstacle. Some AEB systems are able to give pre-impact warning signals to a driver, so that as the threat of an impact increases, either audible, visual or haptic (tactile) warnings will be activated to afford the driver as much time as possible to react and, hopefully, avoid the collision without autonomous intervention. Thatcham says that AEB systems are not designed to completely halt crashes in all scenarios, but they can hopefully mitigate the number of car accidents and the level of personal injuries sustained. Making a car accident claim with YouClaim Sadly, motor vehicle safety systems alone are unlikely to wipe out the risk of suffering a personal injury in a car accident which was not your fault, and it is at such a time that you might require the services of an experienced compensation solicitor who will be committed to achieving just recompense for your pain and suffering, and lost earnings.

When you contact YouClaim you can rest assured that your car accident claim will be handled by leading personal injury solicitors who always have your best interests at the forefront of their work ethic and who will strive to achieve for you the most satisfactory conclusion possible in your claim for compensation. Call YouClaim today on 0800 10 757 95, use our mobile-friendly number 0333 240 0871 or contact us via the internet by using our Live Help or Callbackfacilities. Whichever method you use to contact us you can be certain that our legal specialists will do their best to help you and our fully qualified and accredited car accident claim solicitors will be ready to represent you should you decide to go forward with you claim.
Autonomous driving

Autonomous driving, where drivers dont interfere with their car but simply punch in a destination, is a long way off but the systems that make it possible are already beginning to be introduced. With collision prevention systems, manufacturers are using radars, cameras and sensors to monitor the road around them and brake accordingly to prevent an accident or at least reduce their seriousness much of the technology required to make road trains a reality is already present on cars. All the systems are geared up to allowing the driver to relax and become a passenger; however there is a fear that too much active and passive safety technology can erode a drivers skills and awareness. With Volvo, the driver is always in control and we ensure that by making the technology uncomfortable. With the auto brake system, the technology takes over very late where its impossible not to think that a collision is imminent, says Broberg. That means its designed to interact with drivers who have become distracted rather than those just testing it to its limits. Volvo is sufficiently concerned that active and passive safety technologies could dull a drivers reactions and skills when behind the wheel but, in keeping with its thorough label, it is investigating the pros and cons of reduced driver inputs. Were currently collecting data from three million km of driving. Drivers will be tested at first without the technology and then again when it has been added which should give us an idea of how, and if, drivers change their habits when the technology is engaged by drawing direct comparisons, said Broberg. He continued, Whether habits do or do not change is unclear yet but there is evidence to suggest that with the lane departure system, for example, drivers use their indicator stick more frequently because without it, the lane departure system will sound a warning which can become annoying.

We hope the same trends are identified with collision prevention systems like auto brake.

Autonomous Cars - Accident Avoidance

From our February, 2009 issue Tweet

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Ralph Nader's sensationalist Unsafe at Any Speed set the auto-safety movement's course, one from which it is now about to depart. Nader espoused two radical concepts. One was what he called crashworthy cars - automobiles that sacrifice their skins for their occupants' good. The second was the use of passive restraints; the public and many government officials first learned of air bags in the pages of Unsafe. Today, we've gone about as far as we can down those roads. In the effort to save lives and dollars, preventing cars from bumping into one another in the first place is the next frontier. Engineers have been striving toward that end for decades. GM began investigating automated vehicle controls and built an experimental 1958 Chevrolet without a steering wheel a few years before Nader's seminal tome. In the mid-1990s, Buick modified eight LeSabres so that they could cruise in formation down a 7.5-mile stretch of California's I-15 guided solely by magnets in the pavement. Europe's $1 billion Prometheus Project for autonomous vehicles culminated with an experimental Mercedes-Benz driving nearly 100 miles on German autobahns at speeds occasionally exceeding 100 mph. More recently, the Defense Advanced Research Progress Agency (DARPA) hosted a Grand Challenge competition to foster the development of driverless military vehicles. Teams vied for $6.5 million in prize money. At the first event, in 2004, none of the robotized vehicles completed a 142-mile desert course. The following year, five teams finished, headed by a Volkswagen Touareg prepared by Stanford University. Last year's Urban Challenge consisted of a 60-mile route around obstacles and through (artificial) traffic at a closed Air Force base. Six entrants completed the challenge, led by Carnegie Mellon University's Chevy Tahoe (pictured). The gap between experimental autonomous cars and production models programmed to avoid collisions is rapidly narrowing. Advanced sensors and software have begun trickling down to the consumer level. For example, active cruise control systems using radar or laser sensors to trigger throttle adjustments and brake applications when the forward path becomes impeded are now widely available. The Lexus LS's Advanced Parking Guidance System uses cameras, sonar sensors, and other hardware to automatically wriggle the car into parking spaces. Infiniti's Lane Departure Prevention system - available on M, EX, and FX models - goes beyond simple wander warnings that have been offered by this and other brands; if the vehicle begins drifting out of its lane without a turn signal activated, the brakes on one or two wheels are applied to return the vehicle to a straight-ahead path. By-wire controls with at least some authority over the throttle, brakes, and steering are now commonplace. The current trend of using electric motors instead of hydraulic pressure to assist power steering is another step in the automated-control direction. Still, it's a major leap from automatic steering at parking speeds and a soft nudge of the binders to whirling the wheel and spiking the brakes to avoid a high-speed, head-on collision. Some of the hardware required to close this gap is now in test vehicles. GM has a vehicle-tovehicle communication system using simple and affordable GPS to sense the presence of other vehicles, whether they're in a nearby blind spot or up to a quarter of a mile away. VW's recent

Passat-based iCar packs powerful computer hardware for automatic steering plus a DARPA-like camera, radar, and proximity sensors. The most interesting iCar feature is what VW calls PyroBrake. When camera and radar sensors warn that a collision is imminent, emergency braking can be activated in 80 milliseconds by means of a pyrotechnic charge similar to those that inflate air bags. According to VW engineer Mark Gonter, this approach is more than four times quicker than other forms of panic braking. "The question now," Gonter adds, "is how to detect an unavoidable collision without any false alarms." As the technological gap closes, a philosophical one looms. To implement collision-avoidance systems that take control from the driver and give it to computer chips, carmakers will need the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's blessing. That may not be terribly difficult to obtain. NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said, "We certainly encourage development of this technology, because we believe that there are few gains left to be made by improving the vehicle. Therefore, further significant improvements in safety will have to come from helping drivers avoid collisions in the first place."

Read more: http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/0812_autonomous_cars_auto_accident_avoidance/vi ewall.html#ixzz1eFu0BrER

Brandenburg Gate Mission Accomplished

Sep 22, 2011

Researchers from Freie Universitt Berlin travelled 80 km in total as passengers during a test drive of their autonomous car MadeInGermany over the weekend. The car is driven by computers the safety driver behind the steering wheel only monitors the cars behaviour. The autonomous car is a conventional VW Passat modified for drive by wire.

Enlarge image "MadeInGermany" ( Claudia Heinstein / www.blitzsaloon.de) Electronic commands from the computer are passed directly to the accelerator, the brakes, and the steering wheel of the vehicle. Multiple sensors integrated in the cars chassis provide information about all cars or persons on the street. They allow the car to avoid obstacles, adjust its speed, or change lanes whenever necessary. The vehicle was shown in full Berlin traffic and covered the 20 km back and forth between the International Congress Centre and Brandenburg Gate four times without any incidents.

MadeInGermany is the first car licensed for autonomous driving on the streets and highways of the German states Berlin and Brandenburg. The car was developed by the AutoNOMOs Labs, a university project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The objective of the project is to develop technology that can be transferred to driver assistance systems, to innovative safety systems for conventional cars, or to full autonomous vehicles in private enclosures such as airports or mines. The Berlin researchers have been working on autonomous cars since 2007. The newest car was certified in June of 2011 for autonomous driving and has already covered thousands of kilometres autonomously during the test drives in the days previous to the public demonstration this weekend. The car was extensively tested. As a condition for the driving permit, a safety driver has to be behind the wheel during the tests: if the safety driver touches the brake pedal all computers disconnect and the safety driver can take control of the vehicle.

Enlarge image The modified VW-Passat in front of Berlin's Victory Column ( Claudia Heinstein / www.blitzsaloon.de) The car recognizes its position on the Berlin streets from a very accurate GPS unit and a map of the city. Three laser scanners at the front, and three at the rear of the vehicle detect any car or pedestrian 360 degrees around the car. The measurements are done by emitting laser pulses in the invisible infra red region. The echo of the light pulses is detected, and its flight time determines the distance to objects. A rotating laser scanner on top of the vehicle provides additional measurements up to one million scan points per second of the 3D structure of the environment. A black and white video camera behind the rear view mirror is used to detect the white lane strips and centre the car on its lane. Two colour cameras are used to identify traffic lights and their state. During the test drive in Berlin, the car processed 46 traffic lights successfully during each of the four runs. In the opinion of Prof. Raul Rojas, leader of the project, autonomous vehicles could already be used on private roads since the technology is mature. Driving autonomously on public highways could become acceptable within the next ten to fifteen years, once thorny legal issues have been sorted out. Navigating autonomously in the streets requires additional technological development in order to make the cars extremely safe. The standards used to measure safety in autonomous cars will be far more severe than for humans, says Prof. Rojas, but once all pieces fall into place, autonomous cars will be safer than cars driven by persons. It is just a matter of time. AutoNOMOS Labs sees its research as part of a trend toward green cars. Car sharing is still inconvenient because the customers have to retrieve the car and bring it back to the rental stations. Shared cars of the future will pick up the customers, maybe two or three neighbours at the same time, will drive them to their working place, or to the subway. They will continue servicing other customers after the first passengers have left the vehicle, that is, they will act like

autonomous taxicabs. In combination with public transportation, a city like Berlin could be fully covered with only 10% of the current number of vehicles in the city. MadeInGermany will continue driving the Berlin streets during the next months. The researchers at AutoNOMOS Labs now have a new goal: fully autonomous driving between European cities.

Auto safety has evolved from seatbelts and airbags that cradle and cushion the body in an accident to telematics systems that provide automatic crash notification and send help right away. But while many auto safety features help during and after an accident, more carmakers are now offering safety technology that intervenes before a crash to help minimize occupant injury and damage to a vehicle or even avoid an accident altogether. Through the use of sensors, cameras and onboard computers, these crash prevention systems warn the driver of a potential accident, better prepare the car and occupants for a collision and, in some cases, automatically apply the brakes if the driver doesn't act in time to avoid a crash. While these systems are not a substitute for attentive and careful driving, they can make a substantial difference in the degree of injury to everyone and every vehicle involved in a car accident. They can also help you avoid a crash altogether, ushering in the next evolution in auto safety. Though the technology first appeared on luxury cars, crash prevention systems have started to trickle down to more reasonably priced vehicles. Examples include the Adaptive Cruise Control and Collision Warning with Brake Support available on the 2010 Ford Taurus and the City Safety feature on the 2010 Volvo XC60. Below is a survey of crash prevention systems that are currently available, listed according to the automakers that offer them. Acura The Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS) that's available on the Acura RL, MDX and the new ZDX uses a radar sensor in the front grille that detects objects traveling ahead and monitors their distance and closing speed. When the system determines that a collision is possible, it warns the driver with a display in the instrument panel and an audible indicator. If the driver doesn't slow down, the system tugs at the seatbelt and lightly engages the brakes, and if it determines that a crash is imminent, it cinches the seatbelts and applies brakeforce to mitigate impact velocity and the force of the collision. CMBS works in conjunction with adaptive cruise control, and both features are part of the Technology package option on the RL and the Advance package on the MDX and ZDX. BMW The 2009 BMW 5 Series offers Active Cruise Control (ACC) with Stop & Go that will completely stop the car in stop-and-go traffic while cruise is engaged, and automatically speed it up when traffic starts moving again. The feature is also available on 2009 7 Series vehicles, along with a collision warning system (CWS) that uses the ACC's radar sensor to detect whether

a driver is in danger of colliding with the vehicle in front. A warning appears in the instrument panel as well as in the vehicle's optional head-up display. If the driver doesn't slow the car in time, warnings flash and an alarm sounds and the brakes are prepared for an emergency. CWS is active even if ACC is turned off, and it has two sensitivity settings: one that issues more warning and one that issues less. Ford Adaptive cruise control and Collision Warning with Brake Support (CWBS) is available on the 2010 Ford Taurus, Lincoln MKS and Lincoln MKT. CWBS uses the ACC system's radar sensor to watch for vehicles ahead. If it senses a possible collision, the system warns the driver via a visual indicator projected on the windshield and audible warnings through the stereo system's speakers. It also pre-charges the brakes and activates electronic brake assist to help the driver stop more quickly. Infiniti Infiniti's Intelligent Brake Assist with Forward Collision Warning alerts a driver to a potential collision with audible and visual warnings and automatically engages the brakes to reduce collision speed and help mitigate damage in an accident. But instead of radar, it uses a laser range finder. Intelligent Brake Assist with Forward Collision Warning is available on Infiniti's EX and FX crossovers, which also offer lane departure prevention to guide the vehicle back into its lane when the driver inadvertently drifts out of it. Lexus The Pre-Collision System (PCS) from Lexus debuted on the range-topping LS 460 and has since spread to all of the carmaker's sedans. It uses a radar sensor to gauge the distance and closing speeds of vehicles ahead. If the system's computer predicts that a collision is unavoidable, the front seatbelts are tightened and PCS prepares the brake assist feature so that increased brake pressure is available the moment the driver presses the pedal. The Lexus LS 600h L hybrid also has an option called Advanced Pre-Collision System (APCS), which adds a driver attention monitor. An infrared camera mounted on the steering column senses if a driver is looking away from the road when an object ahead of the car is detected. If so, it sounds a beep and briefly applies the brakes to warn the driver. Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz offers its Distronic Plus with PreSafe Brake system on all 2010 E-Class models as part of the Driver Assistance package. The feature is also an option on S550, S550 4MATIC, S400 Hybrid and S63 AMG models, and standard on the S600 and S65 AMG. PreSafe Brake works in conjunction with Distronic Plus adaptive cruise control so that if a vehicle in front of the host car slows down enough to possibly cause a collision, audible and visual warnings are issued.

If the system determines that the closing speed is too high to avoid an accident, it employs up to 40 percent of total braking force and prepares to apply full braking power once the driver pushes the pedal. If the brake pedal still isn't pushed within what the system calculates as 0.6 second before impact, PreSafe Brake will bring the full braking force to bear in an effort to stop the car prior to a collision. Volvo Available on the 2010 Volvo S80, V70, XC60 and XC70, Adaptive Cruise Control and Collision Warning with Auto Brake uses radar and a camera to detect vehicles up ahead. Like most of the other systems listed here, it first flashes a warning light on the dash and pre-charges the brakes. The new XC60 crossover also adds a new standard feature called City Safety that's designed for urban stop-and-go driving. It uses sensors in the windshield to monitor the vehicle ahead when the XC60 is traveling between 2 and 18 mph. If the car in front slows or stops, City Safety automatically applies enough brakeforce to either slow or stop the vehicle in order to avoid a fender bender.