CNN has just featured the so-called driverless cars -- all equipped with sensors, radars, cameras, computers and communicators that allows them to maneuver its way on roads and through traffic with very little human assistance.
Of course these driverless vehicles still have the usual automobile parts like the . The several components which will serve as the "replacement" for the driver are the parts that are incorporated like, as earlier mentioned, the sensors.
These sensors are placed on the several vital parts of the vehicle to be able to monitor the movements of the car. Many cars of today are already fitted with sensors for various purposes; some to check what the car is doing when the wheels turn and another monitors the movements of the wheels. There are also brake sensors that time the spin of each wheel and sensor on the airbags which will trigger the airbags if and when an impact occurs.
Not only are these sensors fitted to watch over the behavior of the car and how systems work or react with another, the sensors are also there to monitor the actions and behavior of the driver as well. It studies the driving style employed by the driver like the hardness of pressing upon the gas pedal and the manner of turning the wheel.
The radars are designed to monitor the outside movements. Back-up applications are the most known and most common of these component. These are the ones that warn you if the car is getting dangerously close to colliding with other cars or even to people. There is also the active cruise control which allows the driver to set a maximum speed for the car and maintain distances from the other cars.
Although most of these cruise control systems are designed on highway speed mode, Continental Tevis has actually designed a system for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class that will work to slow speed mode and even put the car to a stop. So if the traffic situation is shifty, there is no need to push the brake pedal, the car will be able to stop and go for you. This system of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class will lessen usual crashes of tailgating.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Class line also uses infrared camera and infrared light source for better night vision. The actual road condition can be viewed in green-and-black on a monitor on the dashboard. Furthermore, these cameras will monitor if the vehicle starts to go beyond the bounds of the lane that it occupies. By sounding an alarm, the driver will be warned of this occurrence.
The information that are received by the sensors, the radar and the camera are fed in to the computer which will in turn calculate and assess the proper action that the car should make when it faces certain conditions. The computer also functions as a memory device which stores the information it has received so that in the event that a collision or a crash occurs, investigators can easily determine what went wrong.
In some cars, the computers can actually manipulate and control the actions of the other parts of the vehicle to further prevent accidents.
Another of these devices is the Global Positioning System (GPS) or the telematic system, which enables the driver to communicate with other people and even to computers especially when the need arises. This system uses satellites to be able to know and ascertain the exact location of a car. Studies are still going on for the advancement to give this system the capacity to communicate directly with one another.
The overall benefit of this new technology on cars is of course lessening road accidents and taking care of the passengers on board cars. These driverless automobiles hold the promise of higher speeds and lower fuel consumption.
