Problem Statement

Describe about the Case Study for The Emerging Technology of Automatic Cars.

Introduction

This research proposal identifies and explores the emerging automatic cars technology and then addresses the historical, social, cultural, moral, and ethical issues that it presents. An automatic car is an up-to-date and emerging technology that has continued to transform the sedans in the automobile engineering. Owing to its hands-off driving power, an automatic car like Cadillac or Model S is capable of changing lanes robotically on the highways since they have the vehicle-to-vehicle technology. More over these cars are capable of changing the gears of the car without the assistance of the driver or the owner of the car. The other specifications like pre collision technology that helps the cars to avoid the accidents autonomously on the blind spots of the road or at the turns of the roads. This is helpful for the drivers whenever they do not pay attention to the road for any reason. In addition to that the other technologies like the rear mounted radar and the night vision is used in the automatic cars to provide ease of driving to the owners. 

Problem Statement

There have been increased incidents of road carnage caused by the human-driven cars in the recent past and this trend continues to cause fear to the road users. Consequently, the insurance premiums have tremendously increased despite the economic challenges facing the car owners. Due to these myriad of challenges, the proposal seeks to address the importance of automatic cars as a substitute for the human-driven cars to minimize the challenges.

Literature Review

The emergence of the automatic cars in the automobile production sparks mixed reactions among car buyers in this millenium time. Some technology fanciers seem to embrace the idea as their fervent counterparts who prefer driving express cynicism, especially about motor vehicle insurance(“Self-Driving Cars to Create Long Term Challenges for Auto Insurers: Moody’s”, 2016). Over 75 percent of the U.S. car owners welcome the idea of automatic cars owing to someadvantages such as stability control, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, and steer-by-wire (Naughton, 2016).Such cars possess the ability to communicate with each other and with the infrastructure through vehicle-to-vehicle technology. In addition, this technology will enable the individuals who cannot drive to be mobile. Owing to improved technology, many lives lost on roads due to widespread road carnage will be preserved. Moreover, there is improved the efficiency of both roads and cars. Furthermore, with this technology, there will be offloading of tiresome parts of driving. The central idea about this car is that there is a possibility of rapidly cutting the engine power using the brakes.

Literature Review

Objectives/Aims

The aim of the proposal is to

Identifying and exploring  the emerging automatic cars technology

Auto Transmission- 

Auto Transmission Technology in cars enables the cars to auto tor more specifically self-shifting Transmission. The auto transmission of the gears helps the driver of the car to change the gear without using the clutch or gear (Kahlbau & Bestle, 2013). Basically the technological concept is in these cars is if there is a n-speed Auto-Transmission car where n indicates the number of forward gear ratios, this type of car can change automatically gear ratios according to the movement of the car which gives the freeness to  the car driver from shifting  the gear  manually. This in turn helps reducing the psychological stress of the driver and drive more safely.

Figure 1: Source-www.carmudi.com

Some of the key Benefits of Auto Transmission cars are-

These cars are easy to operate as driver does not require to use clutch to set the timing for shifting and adjusting transmission.

These cars operate remarkably well in Traffics.

More Accurate and powerful.

Pre collision technology-

The companies like Ford and Hyundai developed the pre collision technology and the pedestrian detection technology (Kahlbau & Bestle, 2013). These technologies alert the driver when they are not paying attention to the road and there is a probability of collision. This Technology continuously monitors the surrounding of the car and in case of collision it raises the alarm.   If after the alarm the driver does not respond to the alarm, the system uses the breaks automatically to stop the car and avoid the collision. It is helpful in even the frontal collision.

Figure2: Source: www.gizmo.com

Rear mounted radar-

This system helps the driver of the car to avoid the objects that are immediately behind the car and can cause harm to the boy of the car (Bellur, 2014). This Rear mounted radar technology automatically scans the objects behind the car and send the images in the camera placed in car. This radar system also alerts the driver of the car in case of traffic too. Most of the cars use hidden LCD in the mirror for Rear Mounted Radar System.  It can also help to avoid the collision with the other cars in the parking area (Dooley et al., 2016).

Figure3: Source:www.ohgizmo.com

Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication–

Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication is a wireless technology that alerts the nearby car and helps in reducing the accidents by exchanging the details and position of the car. This technology helps the cars to broadcast the position, speed, break status and other data within the circle of few hundred meters so that the other cars can know their positions and status to alert the sensor systems and the driver of the car (Takai et al., 2014). In the year 2015 Ford introduced this technology in its Automatic cars. 

Objectives/Aims

FIgure4: Vehicle to Vehicle communication system (Source: Takai et al., 2014, pp- 9)

Historical timeline of the different technologies used in the Automatic car

The actual automatic or autonomous vehicle technology was actually developed during 1960s when the space race was in full swing and the researchers were looking for technologies to land an autonomous vehicle on the moon. The first idea to develop a lunar rover vehicle which will be controlled by a remote was first conceptualised by James Adam, who was an engineering student at Stanford University in the year 1961 (Chang, Wang, & Yu, 2011). But the main problem in that idea was how the vehicle will be controlled as there will be a delay of 2.5 seconds in the relay of the commands to the vehicle. This paved way for the development of the world’s first truly self-driven vehicle. This vehicle was called as ‘Cart’, which was fitted with the various cameras and the vehicle was programmed to follow a solid white line on the ground automatically. The automatic vehicles of today are through advanced but they rely on the same camera technology to detect the path. Another major development was achieved in the year 1977 in the field of automatic car technology when the Tsukuba Mechanical of Japan was able to produce the first automatic passenger car vehicle which had the capability to completely recognize the markings on the street and travel automatically at the speed of 20 kilometres per hour. This passenger car also used two cameras that were mounted on the vehicle.  In the year 1987, German engineer Ernst Discmans took a bold step in the field of automatic car technology when equipped a sedan car with various cameras and he connected those cameras with about 60 micro-processing modules so that the vehicle is able to identify and detect the objects on the roads both in front and back of the vehicle. The main feature of the technology that was used by Ernst was that the technology that he used provided a dynamic vision to the computer processor and allowed the car to filter the extraneous noise and just focus on the proper and relevant objects on the road.  This technology is still used in today’s automatic cars so that the cars identify the potential hazard and is able to do course correction.  The technology used by the Ernst was able to drive the sedan automatically up to the speed of 60 kilometres per hour on the road.  The major breakthrough in the field of the automatic technology for the cars was achieved in the year 1995 By General Automatics MQ-1.  This technology relies on an array of radars to locate objects and see beyond the visual range (Segata & Lo Cigno, 2013). The technology also has thermal imaging technology which enabled the vehicles to be able to drive in the night conditions also.  In the year 2015 Tesla achieved a significant success in the automatic technology that allowed to have hands free control on the cars so that are driven in highway and freeway.

Auto Transmission

Figure: Historical time line for the different technologies used in the Automatic cars

(Source: Created by author)

The historical, social, cultural, moral, and ethical issues presented by Automatic cars

Historical issues-

With the development of the new technologies the automobile industry also adopted some of them to provide more reliability and safety than the cars in the past (Bellur et al., 2014). Therefore it became more easy and safe to drive a car in a congested area or accident prone zones. 

Social and Cultural-

If a branch of a tree comes in the way of a car then the driver try to avoid the obstacle by changing the lane of the road, at the same time the driver will try to minimize the problem that is caused by the sudden change (Kahlua & Bustle, 2013). But for the automatic cars if the driver is not alert, then the sudden changes by the auto transmission can cause problems to the other cars behind it.

Moral and ethical issues-

Again it is known that the law and ethics often diverge. For this often the good judgements are considered as illegal as per law (Dooley et al., 2016). As an example in case of any emergency an autonomous car will have a conflict with the driver or the owner of the car on the issue of the speed limit.

Methodology

The data collection will be done by analysing and reviewing the credible and peer-reviewed journals, online publications, and newspapers such as bloomer, and relevant books. I addition, questioners and interviews will be administered to the licensed car owners above 18 years old. An estimated 100 participants will be selected as participants in the study. They will be selected based on experience and professionalism. The data will be analysed using a synergy of both the qualitative and quantitative methods.

Time for the project

The proposal will take approximately 7 weeks for data collection, analysis, and discussion of the main findings.

Tools and Equipment

The equipment required for the project include books to be more explainful, computers for testing knowledge.

Project Flow Chart

References

Bellur, B. R., Bhattacharya, D., & Iyer, A. V. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,819,414. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Chang, T., Wang, M., & Yu, S. (2011). Advance-F automatic car-following model and its traffic characteristics. International Journal Of Automotive Technology, 12(6), 933-942. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12239-011-0106-9

Dooley, D., McGinley, B., Hughes, C., Kilmartin, L., Jones, E., & Glavin, M. (2016). A Blind-Zone Detection Method Using a Rear-Mounted Fisheye Camera With Combination of Vehicle Detection Methods. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 17(1), 264-278.

Kahlbau, S., & Bestle, D. (2013). Optimal shift control for automatic transmission#. Mechanics Based Design of Structures and Machines, 41(3), 259-273.

Naughton, K. (2016). Nearly 75% of U.S. Drivers Say They’d Let a Robot Take the Wheel. Claims Journal. Retrieved 8 July 2016, from https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2016/07/01/271926.htm

Segata, M. & Lo Cigno, R. (2013). Automatic Emergency Braking: Realistic Analysis of Car Dynamics and Network Performance. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., 62(9), 4150-4161. https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/tvt.2013.2277802

Self-Driving Cars to Create Long Term Challenges for Auto Insurers: Moody’s. (2016). Insurance Journal. Retrieved 8 July 2016, from https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/03/29/403341.htm

Takai, I., Harada, T., Andoh, M., Yasutomi, K., Kagawa, K., & Kawahito, S. (2014). Optical vehicle-to-vehicle communication system using LED transmitter and camera receiver. IEEE Photonics Journal, 6(5), 1-14.