The Commonwealth of Virginia's Unmanned Systems Resource
Science and Innovation
A two-person driverless prototype by Google. (Image Credit: Google Self-Driving Car Project)
Like most technology, innovations made in the study of autonomous cars have been gradually implemented into our lives long before fully driverless cars hit the streets. For instance, we're already seeing self-parking cars, advanced cruise control systems, engines that perform self-diagnosis, and road hazard sensors in consumer vehicles today.
These technological milestones could be further utilized by industrial robotics and unmanned aerial systems. As autonomous car engineers continue to need cutting-edge technology to solve everyday challenges, we will continue to see amazing new technology enter our everyday lives.
Just like the old saying goes, "necessity is the mother of all invention."
A visualization of the data being collected by the Google Self-Driving car. (Image Credit: Google Self-Driving Car Project)
A LIDAR system used to capture 1.3 million 3D data points a second, providing the autonomous car with more information about its surroundings than any human driver possibly could see with standard driving techniques. (Image credit: Kozuch)