Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a paradise for technology lovers. Everything that isn’t here but soon will be makes an appearance in this tech-carnival. The recent one held at Las Vegas was no exception to that. Among numerous new innovations dotting the CES, self-driving cars grabbed many eyeballs. Car makers from around the world were present at the event to showcase their respective versions of autonomous cars. Google has been a front runner in this regard from quite a long time, but it seems the equation is changing with many traditional car manufacturers making a foray into this field.
Driverless cars may sound all-exciting and cool, but a lot has to be achieved before they see the light of the day. The primary objective of these cars is to be able to sense obstacles and hazards, such as other cars and pedestrians. They do this using a range of sensors, but to pick out hazards effectively; the car must be able to separate them from the background. This means the car needs a detailed, static picture of the world with which to compare what it sees. That is the car needs a map and that too an extremely detailed one. Google does seem to have an edge over other companies in this regard and it has proven so because it is their prototype autonomous cars that have driven farther than any other counterpart. But Google still has way to go in terms of collecting more data to make the maps fool proof.
Meanwhile, General Motors has made an announcement that it would spend $500 million with car-hailing service Lyft to build “an integrated network of on-demand autonomous vehicles in the US”. Toyota is building a new research institute to work on autonomy, while Audi, BMW, Ford and others also announced progress in their efforts to develop driverless cars. Mercedes has developed a self-driving research vehicle and taxi app Uber has already announced billions of dollars in autonomous car investment.
Data is the key here!
Presently, Google and the other companies are almost at par as far as data related to the maps is concerned. Add to that the new approach that the car manufacturers are trying. These car manufacturing giants are banding or tying together to make their own maps and they do seem better poised in this situation. So while Google controls its entire driverless car operations, gathering the map data itself and processing it for the intelligent software that drives its cars (it can also use Street View to get its map data, collected by a dedicated fleet of cars) making the procedure very expensive; the other car makers are using the sensors on new car models to collectively gather mapping data, rather than having an expensive fleet of dedicated vehicles.
