When you see a Tesla on the road, you admire it! Maybe because of its immense cost...or due to its cool, slick look. For me, it's because of the Tesla Autopilot mode, and what that represents for the future of Connected Cars.
A connected car is a vehicle with internet and WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) access, allowing it to communicate with other vehicles on the road. The car can access and send data, download software, communicate with IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and even provide WiFi for its passengers!
Currently, commercial autopilot mode still requires a full-attentive, hands-on driver, ready to take over the car at any point. Tesla's Autopilot capability consists of Traffic-Aware Cruise Control that matches your speed to that of the traffic around you and Autosteer, which assists in steering you in a clearly-marked lane. But look at what the technology is capable of:
In the age of hands-on autopilot, we look toward fully-driverless vehicles in the future. Cars in harmony on the highway, all communicating with each other, preventing crashes where otherwise human distraction could cause them. This summer, I am interning at the Next Generation Mobility Systems Research Lab at the University of Michigan. We research the logistics behind Connected Cars-- how to use the aggression of a car to predict its next move, how to tell the cars around it to react, etc. The future of driverless vehicles is insanely awesome, and a completely plausible reality.
The idea is to have cars that are constantly communicating with each other. If a car is about to hit the brakes, the cars behind it will receive this information and subsequently brake at a calculated and staggered deceleration, thus preventing a possible collision.
Connected Cars will not only significantly decrease the annual six million car accidents in the US but they will also reduce commute time and allow for humans to spend that commute time productively. With your route pre-loaded into the car's navigation system, you will never make a wrong turn or go off-route. With every car harmoniously plugged into the same network, speed limits can also increase, since reaction times will be much quicker and not based on sight, but actual car data.
I, for one, am tremendously excited for the future with driverless vehicles. Maybe one day I'll be able to finish my homework on the way to school. I have a lot more to share, so stay tuned for more posts in this series.