The future of self-driving cars is not too distant, according to internet giant Google, which already has a prototype on the streets.
In a recent blog, the search engine provider displayed the software it has developed and is testing in cars on the streets of Mountain View, California, where the company is based.
‘Since our last post, we’ve logged thousands of miles on the streets of our hometown of Mountain View,’ said Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project at Google.
‘A mile of city driving is much more complicated than a mile of freeway driving, with many different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area.’
‘We’ve updated our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously like pedestrians, buses, a stop sign raised by a crossing guard, or a cyclist indicating by gestures a possible turn.’
‘A self-driving vehicle can observe all of these things in a way that a human physically can’t — and it never gets tired or distracted.’
A self-driving car is just one of the modern projects that Google is working on as part of the company’s X Lab — which is where Google Glass, the company’s wearable headset that links with your smartphone, originated.
The technology Giant is also working on weather balloons that contain WiFi signal in order to bring internet access to remote parts of the world. Facebook has also announced its plans for a similar project based on remotely-piloted drones.
‘Our vehicles have now done nearly 700,000 autonomous miles, and with every passing mile we’re growing more confident that we’re heading toward an achievable goal — a vehicle that operates fully without human intervention’, said Urmson, who claimed that the company’s computers are able to comfortably foresee what happens on city streets.
The self-driving car project has been in operation for four years, and came as a response to World Health Organisation figures which reported that more than one million people are killed in road traffic accidents each year.
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