Journal # 6 - Jules

Jules ( Lu Tao)

According to an article "Progress in Self-Driving Vehicles ", self-driving vehicles have been become a hot project in engineering field. The author who is head of engineering for Google's Self-Driving Car Project is Chris Urmson. Urmson states three positive points of self-driving vehicles also are goals: they may can evidently decrease accidents, enable people who cannot drive to get around, and, reduce congestion by share information.

Firstly, More than 30,000 people are killed each year on the road, and over 90 percent of these accidents are due to human error. Driver assistance system can warn or fix human error to keep safe driving. Moreover, Self-driving vehicles can help disabled people get around and mitigate the pressure of their family. Third, self-driving vehicles can choose best driving plan by analyze seasonable traffic situation avoid traffic jam.

However, self-driving vehicles also has some challenges. Driver assistance system that is an artificial smart system cannot get same discretion with real person. It means the system may make mistake when it has a complicated road situation. In the other hand, most modern technology products need work in online system. For example, self-driving vehicles develop high-density LIDAR to solve The Urban Challenge; the system need connect with internet for update the onboard map seasonable because the terrain environment would change frequently. That is very danger that if the vehicle does not have a perfect security system, somebody may can control the vehicle by hacker skill.

As far as I am concerned, self-driving vehicle which can drive without remote assistance is a good idea. However, I enjoy the feeling that drive by myself, and I do not want a computer or system control my direction totally. A driver assistance system, that can give me warning or fix my error when I have emergency, is all about I can accept.