Upcomming Tech - Autonomous Cars

Today’s cars are packed with a variety of driver assistance aids. You can get most any car today with GPS, but luxury car makers such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Volvo provide a whole lot more. Options now include active cruise control, lane departure warning/intervention, traffic info and blind spot warning. These cars can even brake on their own to avoid hitting an obstacle or pedestrian in front of the vehicle.

A few years ago, DARPA ran its Grand Challenge, in which teams competed to race fully autonomous cars that drove themselves. They were tested in off-road, highway and urban settings. Some of these competitors later went to work for Google’s autonomous vehicle efforts.

In the future, we will have autonomous cars, where driver control will be optional. Even though the thought might seem scary, the cars will be safer than any car you’d pilot yourself. They will constantly evaluate their current environment with multiple sensors -- and they’ll never get distracted by text messages.

Will they be complex to operate? Not at all. Your PMC will act as a user interface to any device, including your autonomous car. It will know your schedule and address book, so when you get into your car one hour before an appointment, the car’s GPS will instantly display the destination address and arrival time. All you have to do is say, “Let’s go!”