User:Chrismleverich/sandbox

Self driving cars or Unmanned Ground Vehicles are on the the most interesting and cutting edge technologies on the market right now. With multiple new technologies such as GPS, Odometry, Laser sensors and more these cars are at the top of the list when it comes to the capabilities of becoming a reality. However before we can put these technological beasts onto the open roads we will need to talk about a few key aspects of the vehicles. With cyber security being as important as it is in today's society the ability to protect these cars and those inside of them will be of utmost concern.

Companies such as Google and Tesla are at the forefront of the field when it comes to self driving cars. Creating new technologies and reusing some already created such as LIDAR, RADAR, GPS, and Odometry, these vehicles have the capability of driving themselves in cities to highways and everywhere in between. In order to understand how these vehicles are able to achieve such a massive feat we need to look closer into the technology that makes it possible. Lidar is one of the most important components for these vehicles, this tech stands for Light detection and ranging and is similar to RADAR. However unlike radar, Lidar uses lasers in order to find out where things around it are. While the technology itself is very complex the idea is actually pretty simple the device shoots out laser beams from a 360° device mounted on top of the car and bounce of the things surrounding the car and bounce back at the device (Shchetko, 2014). This allows the computer within the car to compute where things are and how to move the vehicle accordingly. This technology is much more accurate than Radar with Ford Motor Co. stating “says lidar can sense the difference between a paper bag and a small animal at 100 yards” which radar is unable to do (Shchetko). Unfortunately these prototypes of liddar are very expensive ranging all the way up to 85,000 dollars in Google's Waymo. Luckily companies such as AUDI a european car manufacturer states that a system with only 4 lasers would be sufficient enough to ensure safety on major highways unlike Google’s 64 laser system. These 4 laser systems cost as little as 1,000 dollars and have already been implemented in some advanced cruise control vehicles according to Nick Shchetko. However Lidar can not do it all the vehicles need many other systems in order to be able navigate the complex roads. However not all of these aspects to do relate to the technology itself but the impact of them regarding the social impact of the cars as well as the ethics that go along with them.