antenna on the tonneau and wired up in such a way that the car was being drive by remote control. American Wonder was driven through Broadway and Fifth Avenue in traffic, controlled by the car that was emitting the signals directly behind it.
Less than 10 years later, with travel times to places getting longer, the people driving these machines were getting more tired when transporting themselves or passengers.
An aircraft in 1933 was trialling out a new system that would enable pilots to get some assistance in driving their planes, helping them maintain speed and altitude when in the air. This system became Autopilot and would be the start of what would soon be commonly installed in cars as Cruise Control, a technology commercialized around the late 1950s.
In the following 30 years, Autonomous technologies jumped leaps and bounds as cameras brought in a new wave of opportunities to expand into the autonomous world.
In the 1960s, in the midst of the international space race, researchers were able to develop what would be known as ‘The Cart’, a self-driving vehicle able to drive itself along a path, following a white line that could be tracked by cameras.
In the 1970s in Japan, Tsubka Mechanical built on the innovations that had come with ‘The Cart’ and had a vehicle of their own that was able to recognize street markings whilst traveling approximately 20 miles per hour.
10 years later German engineer Ernst Dickmanns loaded his sedan with cameras and was able to make the car understand circumstances in the road such as street signs, objects in the road and even noise. This was a massive advance as is technology that is still used to this day.
All of these components and historical events have led to the point if where we are today. Whilst there have been other new innovations ideas and technologies since the 1980s, including the invention of self-parking, self-driving in different weather conditions and even working with different levels of visibility – the common goal has remained the same.
Many car companies are working towards autonomous vehicles including Audi, BMW, Ford, Mercedes and Tesla amongst others. With this being a technology and engineering task, it is heavily rumored that even Google and Apple could be looking to get into the autonomous car market. Cab giant Uber is working towards having the first autonomous cab fleet in the future.
The Autonomous Level scale is in place to explain the level of input a car requires from human in order to run. The scale runs from 0-5.Zero on the scale means the car has o automation in it and requires human input to function entirely. On the opposite end of the scale, Level 5 would be a fully autonomous vehicle requiring no input from a human. All s in the middle require human input, but the amount required is dependent on the vehicles autonomous limitations.
Tesla’s Model S provided the first fatality when testing autonomous vehicles, but the Audi A8, a Level 3 Autonomous car is out there to turn heads with Audi claiming it could be the first of its kind to go into full production. Whilst it is a work in progress, the fact that Audi think the car is near completion shows Autonomous Cars on the roads is not a long way off.
Tesla's new Model S feature autonomous driving features
SEPTEMBER 2018 | MANE AUTOMOTIVE, F1 & MOTORSPORT | 13