The idea of SDCs on our streets seemed like a crazy sci-fi fantasy until just a few years ago. However, the rapid progress made in recent years in both AI and autonomous technology proves that the SDC is becoming a reality. But while this technology appears to have emerged virtually overnight, it has been a long and winding path to achieving the self-driving vehicles of today. In reality, it wasn't long after the invention of the motor car when inventors started thinking about autonomous vehicles.
In 1925, former US army electrical engineer and founder of The Houdina Radio Control Co., Francis P Houdina, developed a radio-operated automobile. He equipped a Chandler motor car with a transmitting antenna and operated it from a second car that followed it using a transmitter.
In the early 1990s, Dean Pomerleau, who is a PhD researcher from Carnegie Mellon University, did something interesting in the field of SDCs. Firstly, he described how neural networks could allow an SDC to take images of the road and predict steering control in real time. Then, in 1995, along with his fellow researcher Todd Jochem, he drove an SDC that they created on the road. Although their SDC required driver control of the speed and brakes, it traveled around 2,797 miles.
Then came the grand challenge by DARPA in 2002, which we discussed previously. This competition offered a $1 million prize to any researcher who could build a driverless vehicle. It was stipulated that the vehicle should be able to navigate 142 miles through the Mojave Desert. The challenge kicked off in 2004, but none of the competitors were able to complete the course. The winning team traveled for less than 8 miles in a couple of hours.
In the early 2000s, when the autonomous car was still futuristic, self-parking systems began to evolve. Toyota's Japanese Prius hybrid vehicle started offering automatic parking assistance in 2003. This was later followed by BMW and Ford in 2009.
Google secretly started an SDC project in 2009. The project was initially led by Sabastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. The project is now called Waymo. In August 2012, Google revealed that their driverless car had driven 300,000 miles without a single accident occurring.
Since the 1980s, various companies such as General Motors, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Toyota, and BMW have started working on their own autonomous vehicles. As of 2019, 29 US states have passed legislation enabling autonomous vehicles.
Nvidia Xavier is an SDC chip that has incorporated AI capabilities. Nvidia also announced a collaboration with Volkswagen to transform this dream into a reality, by developing AI for SDCs.
On this journey to becoming a reality, the driverless car has launched into a frenzied race that includes tech companies and start-ups, as well as traditional automakers.
The market for self-driving vehicles, including cars and trucks, is categorized into transport and defense, based on their application. Transportation is expected to emerge in the future which is further divided into industrial, commercial, and consumer applications.
The SDC and self-driving truck market size is estimated to grow to 6.7 per thousand vehicular units globally in 2020 and is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 63.1% from 2021 to 2030.
It is expected that the highest adoption of driverless vehicles will be in the US due to the increase in government support for the market gateway of the autonomous vehicle. The US transportation secretary Elaine Chao signaled strong support for SDCs in the CES tech conference, Las Vegas, which was organized by the Consumer Technology Association on January 7th, 2020.
Additionally, it is expected that Europe will also emerge as a potentially lucrative market for technological advancements in self-driving vehicles with increasing consumer preference.
In the next section, we will learn about the challenges in current deployments of autonomous driving.