Background History
As self-driving cars begin to become reality with each coming year, new challenges also begin to emerge. These issues include safety, equity, environmental impacts, and other problems that slow their fast-paced emergence. Among these challenges include rural areas, which are not electronically mapped for self-driving cars.
How It Works
Typical self-driving cars are based of pre-made maps specifically designed for autonomous vehicles. These maps are perfect for highly populated cities where high traffic areas can be tracked to make small changes to each element in the map. Although these may seem perfect, they are far from it as they are very tedious to make and are not cost effective. That's when a group MIT researches decided to set off to conquer the challenge of a descriptive map-less self-driving vehicle. They used numerous sensor to collect data in order to not have to rely on a map.
Impacts/Future Growth
As the area of self-driving cars continues to rapidly grow, expect the area of rural autonomous vehicles to also succeed. The technology can allow drivers to do other tasks with their time instead of driving.
Pros
- Can help drivers save time
- Can help prevent crashes
- Can be used in other applications (autonomous tractors, airplanes, and drones)
Cons
- Not yet fully developed
- Sensors add extra cost to cars
- Can in some cases be less safer than a human driver
Works Cited
CSAIL, Rachel Gordon |. “Self-Driving Cars for Country Roads.” MIT News, 7 May 2018, news.mit.edu/2018/self-driving-cars-for-country-roads-mit-csail-0507.
Hawkins, Andrew J. “MIT Built a Self-Driving Car That Can Navigate Unmapped Country Roads.” The Verge, The Verge, 13 May 2018, www.theverge.com/2018/5/13/17340494/mit-self-driving-car-unmapped-country-rural-road.
“Self-Driving Cars Explained.” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/how-self-driving-cars-work#.W7f4ZWhKhPY.
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