Germany has made great progress with driverless cars as can be seen by the VW Passat driving around in Berlin recently. Computers and sensors on-board helped the car to drive over 80 km in the streets of the city with total autonomy.
The experimental autonomous car was designed and tested by researchers from Freie Universität Berlin. It has been named ‘MadeInGermany’. The car had a safety driver, Tinosch Ganjineh, behind the steering wheel, but he merely monitored the car as it drove the 20 km distance between the International Congress Center and Brandenburg Gate four times.
The regular VW Passat has been modified to drive by wire as a university project that was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The modifications were made by AutoNOMOs Labs. The electronic commands are passed from the on-board computer directly to the accelerator, brakes and steering wheel.
The car uses a GPS system and map of the city to find its position. It has lasers to detect any vehicle and or pedestrian around the car. A laser scanner on top of the vehicle gives the computer additional information about the immediate 3D structure of the environment around it.
Raul Rojas, the head of the university's research group for artificial intelligence said that the vehicle can recognize other cars on the road, pedestrians, buildings and trees up to 70 meters around it and even see if the traffic lights ahead are red or green and react accordingly.
The car which has been worked on for 4 years is said to have faster recognition and reaction to its environment than that of a human being. Autonomous cars are in different stages of development in major laboratories worldwide. It is difficult to say who has the most developed vehicle at this stage, but for sure cruise control in the future will be a pleasure.