Volvo has moved one step closer towards its goal of autonomous driving by announcing that the public will be able to get its hands on self-driving cars by 2017 through a pilot for the company’s Drive Me initiative. The project is said to be key to Volvo’s dream of sustainable mobility and a crash-safe future.
The trial run, set to begin in Gothenburg, will involve 100 autonomous cars coursing through selected roads around Volvo’s home city, integrated into real traffic. The vehicles will utilise a “production-viable” system with sensors, cloud-based positioning systems and intelligent braking and steering capabilities.
“We are entering uncharted territory in the field of autonomous driving,” said Volvo’s senior vice president for research and development Peter Mertens. “Taking the exciting step to a public pilot, with the ambition to enable ordinary people to sit behind the wheel in normal traffic on public roads, has never been done before.”
Volvo’s self-driving technology is claimed to be reliable enough to take over every aspect of driving, distancing itself from current systems through the incorporation of a fail-safe architecture with back-up systems. These include a second independent braking system in the event of failure of the main system, as the driver is unlikely to be prepared to press the brake pedal when the car is in autonomous mode.
The technology will also be capable of handling even the most challenging of situations, including heavy traffic and emergency situations. The system will alert the driver to take over when autonomous driving is no longer available, due to extreme weather conditions or a technical malfunction, for example. If the driver is incapacitated for any reason, the car will come to a stop in a safe place.
“Developing a complete technological solution for self-driving cars is a major step,” said Volvo technical specialist Erik Coelingh. “Once the public pilot is up and running, it will provide us with valuable knowledge about implementing self-driving cars in the traffic environment, and help us explore how they can contribute to sustainable mobility.”
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WOW.. Nice tech….This sure will cost A LOT…This thing about car, I wonder why they cant be like handphone, ever evolving tech but price remains in the same classification
Thanks for giving them the idea. Now device will be cheap but car owner will have to pay monthly. Two months don’t pay, car cannot start.
I wonder , what if you fell asleep and the camera optical view was block by external dirt, thus part of the sensor gone.
coming to saudi arabia this fall~!
I hope they develop sensors to detect and avoid large potholes if this autonomous driving system ever introduce in Malaysia
Won’t work in BolehLand due to:
1. Pot Holes. Well, Eddy the sensor have to detect both pot holes AND motorcyclist that would be zipping thru in between cars….. I fear the system will “HANG”
2. Man hole covers missing the COVERS…. the affect will be as point #1.
3. 40 Km/h cars driving on the fast lane on the highways…. automatically will create a jam kilometres long, the system not programme to overtake on the left side.
Never mind lah, tengok aje lah. OR we can be like orang jakun baru keluar hutan and go “WAAAAA!!!! car can drive by itself one!!!!” If anyone of us have the chance to go overseas….. hehehehe
With this auto pilot vehicle, Then we dont need to get a drivers license. The car itself will go to JPJ to get its own license.
I believe traffic police will catch if driver’s hands are not on steering wheel.
So now that we can have BOTH HANDS be doing other things…will police accept explanations or still summon as usual?