Discipline: Technology and Engineering
Subcategory: Computer Engineering
Session: 1
Room: Marriott Balcony A
Riquel Moore - Virginia State University
Autonomous vehicles are vehicles that guide themselves with or without human conduction. They are capable of sensing the environment. These vehicles are also known as self-driving car or robot car. Autonomous technology can be used for little more than parking or lane-changing. Connected car technology is essential for driverless tech and until it’s here, it won’t be safe for human-operated and autonomous cars to co-exist, but when we upgrade our roads foundation, driverless tech will rely on human sensor arrays and still be at risk from unpredictable. However, the way driverless cars react to pedestrians is a critical issue and one that will take thorough research to get right. Before these problems are solved, fully autonomous cars will pose a dangerous risk to other road users. Driverless cars are only truly safe when tested and operated around other driverless cars in a controlled environment. One of the goals was to have an autonomous vehicle that could receive a map of its environment and coordinates for a path. Once the vehicle receives this information it would be able to traverse this path on its own. In addition, the vehicle would be able to work around obstacles during its route. Finally, the vehicle will be able to record information about its environment while it was going around its path. While programming the autonomous vehicle, I have noticed that the cars are most reliable on the sensors and most of the self-driving cars have maps of their surroundings based on the sensors. These cars have a lot of sensors to help them move around in the environment while trying to blend in. For example, light sensors to detect brightness while moving around, photo-resistor to detect proximity and take a 360-degree picture, and sound sensors to detect sounds or vibrations. To help with navigation, driverless cars are built with GPS sensing. Most of the time sensors are used to avoid collisions. With these sensors, the vehicle was able to send the information back to the computer and let the operator know the route it took. The discovery of this vehicle with the different sensors showed the different ways the sensors helped the vehicle navigate throughout the route. Future research involves understanding the interaction of the different sensors that are put onto the vehicle to help the car blend better into the environment while roaming around. References: 1. “Driverless Cars of the Future: How Far Away Are We from Autonomous Cars?” Alphr, https://www.alphr.com/cars/1001329/driverless-cars-of-the-future-how-far-away-are-we-from-autonomous-cars. 2. “What Is an Autonomous Car? – Definition from Techopedia.” Techopedia.com, https://www.techopedia.com/definition/30056/autonomous-car. 3. Alton, Larry. “How Self-Driving Cars Could Impact the Environment.” Blue and Green Tomorrow, 25 May 2018, https://blueandgreentomorrow.com/environment/self-driving-cars-could-impact-environment/. Faculty Advisor/Mentor: Christopher Washington, cwashington@vsu.edu
Funder Acknowledgement(s): I would like to thank Dr. Washington for help in the field. Funding was provided by an NSF/ HBCU-UP.
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Christopher Washington, cwashington@vsu.edu
Role: I programmed the autonomous vehicle to blend in with the environment and get the surveillance of the environment using different sensors.