Self Driving Cars

Friends, All of you must have heard about "Self Driving Cars" that in future, Cars would drive by its own. But, Do you know that all the types of self driving cars are not the same. There are different levels of them. Today, I will talk about these levels.
There are different companies who are trying to develop the self driving cars and put them into the market so that people don't need to drive the car and the car drive itself. In 2014, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), introduced the different levels of automation in which they described that the cars can be automated to which level and that will decide that weather the human will require to hold the steering wheel or he/she can sit on the back seat enjoying the ride without doing anything and the car will automatically drive itself. So, there are six different levels from Level 0 to Level 5.


Level 0: No Automation

There is nothing automatic in the car and all the work is done by the human like applying accelerator, applying brakes, monitoring, etc. It is possible that the car can give you some emergency beeps or warnings but all the efforts will be taken by the human.

Level 1: Driver Assistance

Here, the car can do any one work at a time automatically. Car can maintain its speed and distance. It can do simple lane keeping and self parking. Car can do some work itself but driver have to hold the steering and control the car.

Level 2: Partial Automation

Here, We are progressing with the Auto Pilot mode of TESLA. The system control the acceleration and braking but the monitoring is done by the human and he/she must be ready to take the control anytime if anything happens wrong. This system works in some driving modes only. This does not work everywhere like in streets. It can work on highways and that too with human assistance.

Level 3: Conditional Automation

Here, Car can do almost everything itself including monitoring. But, It also can operate in selective areas and human assistance is needed. The car will notify human for taking the control.

Level 4: High Automation

Currently, Google is working on it and other companies are also planning to bring cars with Level 4 automation. Here, all work will be done by car itself like acceleration, braking, monitoring, etc. And, If it notify you to take the control in some situations and you are unable to take the control then it will stop itself safely in the side and protect you from any harm. But, again the same thing is that it can not operate in all areas and in all driving modes.

Level 5: Full Automation

As the name signifies, here you have nothing to do. The steering wheel is also optional. The car does not need human assistance in any area or any driving mode.

Currently, We are in level 2 in the market. We are trying to skip Level 3 as it is not much different from Level 2. And, we are trying to directly move to Level 4. Who knows, In future, We can go to Level 5. Hope for a better and automated future.

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